A crowing collection of interesting articles about the technical and conceptional aspects of visual effects pipeline design and production databases:

APIs/XML/Integration

XML Services at Framestore CFC
This presentation illustrates the real-world deployment of a complex XML-RPC service architecture within one of Europe’s largest visual effects houses, ranging from integration with Filemaker Pro, to driving 35mm Laser Film Recorders.

EDDIEOFFERMANN DOT COM 
“XML is like violence. If it doesn’t solve your problem, you’re not using it enough.”

Digital Asset Management

DAM: good solutions;
Post pros want asset management integrated with project management

Specifications

Collada
COLLADA is a royalty-free XML schema that enables digital asset exchange within the interactive 3D industry.
OpenEXR
OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range (HDR) image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications.

Products

Temerity
“Temerity Pipeline is the industry’s first complete production control application.  Designed for studios in the film, television and game industries, Pipeline provides seamless control over assets, revisions, archiving and job handling.”

Articles on workflows

Wikipedia: Workfow
“A workflow is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, work of a simple or complex mechanism, work of a group of persons,[1] work of an organization of staff, or machines. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work, segregated in workshare, work split or whatever types of ordering. For control purposes, workflow may be a view on real work under a chosen aspect,[2] thus serving as a virtual representation of actual work.”

Pipelines: Plumbing for the next web
For the purposes of this paper, a pipeline is a metaphor for a series of tasks or operations that run in sequence. In their most abstract form, pipelines are made up of pipes. These pipes can be tasks, processes, actions, etc. Each pipe has an input, a middle, and an output. The middle definition really depends on the context in which the pipeline exists.

An activity based Workflow Engine for PHP
A computer application contains a number of different ‘tasks’, ‘transactions’, ‘programs’ or ‘modules’, each of which performs a particular function. Sometimes the processing of one particular task is supposed to be followed by one or more other tasks in order to complete some higher process.