The subject invention pertains to a systems and methods of restarting programs upon failure. In particular, the systems and methods provide for generation of a checkpoint component including program execution status or completion data as well as state. This checkpoint component can then be employed by an execution engine to restart the program at a point in time captured by the checkpoint component. According to one specific aspect of the invention, these systems and methods can be applied to a workflow system to facilitate restarting a workflow package or process described thereby.