Optimal Workflow Scheduling in Critical Infrastructure Systems with Neural Networks

Critical infrastructure systems (CISs), such as power grids, transportation systems, communication networks and water systems are the backbone of a country’s national security and industrial prosperity. These CISs execute large numbers of workflows with very high resource requirements that can span through different systems and last for a long time. The proper functioning and synchronization of these workflows is essential since humanity’s well-being is connected to it. Because of this, the challenge of ensuring availability and reliability of these services in the face of a broad range of operating conditions is very complicated. This paper proposes an architecture which dynamically executes a scheduling algorithm using feedback about the current status of CIS nodes. Different artificial neural networks (ANNs) were created in order to solve the scheduling problem. Their performances were compared and as the main result of this paper, an optimal ANN architecture for workflow scheduling in CISs is proposed. A case study is shown for a meter data management system with measurements from a power distribution management system in Serbia. Performance tests show that significant improvement of the overall execution time can be achieved by ANNs.