How To Compare The Cost Of Business Process Management (Bpm) To Open Source Software (Bmp)

Transcription

1 Open Source Business Process Management Suites Trends and Advantages

2 Executive Summary This paper explains open source BPM and its benefits. Focused and in-depth description of two major open source BPM solution providers is given. An attempt to compare the cost associated with traditional and open source BPM solution is also done. What is open source?... You get more than what you pay for... Open source usually refers to software that is released with source code under a license that ensures that derivative works will also be available as source code, protects certain rights of the original authors, and prohibits restrictions on how the software can be used or who can use it. The most important difference between software created by the open source communities and commercial software sold by vendors is that open source software is published under licenses that ensure that the source code is available to everyone to inspect, change, download, and explore as they wish. This is the essential meaning of open source: the source code, the language in which the software is written and the key to understanding how the software works can be obtained and improved by anyone with the right skills. Why open source? Open Source projects have certainly helped end consumers. They have offered cheaper and better alternatives and also forced established global vendors to innovate. Firefox internet browser is an impressive illustration of this. Open source and BPM BPM (business process management) offers a programmatic structure for designing transactions and executing those using automated decisions, tasks and sequence flows. Open source entered this new area of information technology when the firm Intalio Inc announced its entry in to the open source BPM market (Though Intalio was not the first player in open source BPM; entry of Intalio to open source BPM is considered as the first major initiative in this area). "BPM is a pretty new concept of open source. It allows companies to implement new business processes on existing systems without adding to the code. Because it is open source it changes more rapidly to business processes. BPM technology emerged five to six years ago, with BPM or BPM systems. There has been very little news involving open source versions. What has happened is that BPM has more and more become the fabric of enterprise infrastructure, especially with service oriented architectures (SOAs). The reason why we are bringing open source to it is because the customers are asking for it. They want to use BPM on a very large scale, and they want the flexibility and security that can be provided with an open source community." -- Ishmael Ghalimi, Founder and CEO of Intalio on Open Source BPM.

3 BPM Suites does fall into software category, which qualifies itself to have an open source initiative. BPM suites can be considered under software category used to build up infrastructure for any firm. Open source initiative in this field can succeed as the firms need not publish practises and business related processes which earns competitive advantage in market. These practises will remain as internal applications within the organization. Open source doesn t mean cheap, limited functionality or poor in quality BPM solutions; rather the reverse is true. Benefits of open source BPM... better and cheaper software The benefits of open source BPM system can be listed as Reduces total cost of ownership Even FREE versions of BPM suites are available. Decreases time to solution Flexibility enables customization to specific environments Open Source Code. Reduces integration costs - Open Standards and Interoperability. Quickly responds to the frequent changes in the business requirements Some of the costs associated with a BPM initiative are Implementation Costs - Deployment costs Customization Costs o No process re-use o Pay for every customization Upgrade Costs Integration Costs-Vendor specific adaptors Even though every penny invested in BPM is worth it, an open source initiative reduces this investment cost considerably. Open source is going to reduce the cost of BPM system especially at the entry level, it is highly desirable for a concept, which is still in the initial stages of its lifecycle. BPM technologies are compared on the following parameters Business Process Modelling Capabilities -Defining process graphically/textually. -Ability to create value chain, high-level process model, organization model and roles. -Process decomposition. -Capability of importing and managing organizational structures. -Capability to link organization and processes. -Capability to support standards (BPMN, BPEL etc). Ease of Use Business Rules Capability and Interface -Graphical Rules Editor. -Ability to manage business rules.

4 Open source BPM implementation doesn t lag behind pure-play vendors in any of these capabilities rather outperform most of them. The next two sections focus on offerings and analysis of two major open source BPM solution providers, Intalio and JBPM. Intalio INTALIO- pioneers in Open Source BPM Suites. Intalio is built around the standards-based Eclipse STP BPMN modeller and Apache ODE BPEL engine, both originally contributed by Intalio. Business analysts and software engineers can both use Intalio, because it s the easiest way to bridge the gap between business and IT. Also, since it offers zero code development and one-click deployment, you do not have to be a J2EE guru or an XML expert to use it, and if you are one anyway, you will find in Intalio Designer a formidable productivity enhancer. Intalio Server is a native BPEL 2.0 process server based on J2EE. Because it is architected around the new Java Business Integration (JBI) technology, it can be deployed on virtually any J2EE application server. Intalio Enterprise provides all the components required for the design, deployment, and management of the most complex business processes which includes BRE BAM Portal ESB ECM Intalio offers BPM suites in several editions Community edition Enterprise edition Developer edition Business edition Used by 50, % Enterprise 100% Open Source 100% Web Based Organizations Worldwide Ready (Apache License) Standards Based Standards Based Simple Available On (BPMN+BPEL) (BPMN+BPEL) Orchestration Demand Language Zero Code, One Zero Code, One Web 2.0 Workflow Document and Click Deploy Connectors Available for Most Applications Click Deploy Connectors Available for Most Application Totally Free Licensed Through Yearly Subscriptions Task Manager Object Bindings for Multiple Languages Support Available Services Simulate Processes Deploy and Execute Workflows Free for 1 Analyst and 3 Business Users

5 Intalio s free community edition is made of two components, Intalio Designer and Intalio Server. Intalio Designer allows one to model the business level processes for the model to be eventually deployed to Intalio Server. Intalio Designer is the only tool currently available on the market that allows any BPMN model to be turned into fully executable BPEL processes without having to write any code. Intalio Server is a high-performance process engine that can support the most complex business processes, deployed within mission-critical environments. Suite Overview SYSTEM INTROSPECTION - Automatic System Interface WSDL Generation, Visual Connectors for all Supported Systems. CODE GENERATION & IMPORT - ARIS Import, Automatic Process Code Generation, BPEL4WS 1.0/1.1, Code Import, BPML Code Import, Transparent Process Validation, WS-BPEL 2.0 Code Generation, WS-BPEL 2.0 Code Import, WSDL Endpoint Generation. ENVIRONMENT - BPMN 1.0 Support, Eclipse Plug-in Version, Integrated Development Environment, Standalone Version LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT - Advanced Searching, Check-In/Check-Out, Collaborative Versioning, Graphical Dependency Manager, Local Versioning MAPPING EDITOR - Graphical Assignment Mapping, Graphical Rule Mapping, Graphical Transformation Mapping, Schema-to-Schema Mapping Editor, Support for Complex Schemas, Transparent Schema Validation, XML Schema 1.0 Support, XPath 1.0 Support. PROCESS DEPLOYMENT - Dynamic Consistency Checking, One-Click Process Deployment, Online Reference Tracking.

6 PROCESS MODELER - Advanced Set of Pre-Built Process Constructs, Compensation Flows, Various Drag and Drop UI, Process Map Export, Reusable Process Support, Visual Property Editor. Gartner s Magic Quadrant Intalio is the first and only open source player to be featured in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for BPM Suites and the company is considered one of the thought leaders of the fastgrowing BPM market and is placed among the visionaries in the magic quadrant.

7 Intalio s Customer Base Source: Intalio Corporate Presentation.

8 JBoss JBPM jbpm is an open source platform for executable process languages ranging from business process management (BPM) over workflow to service orchestration. jbpm supports three different process languages. Each one is targeted towards a specific function and environment. jpdl (JBoss s own process definition language) BPEL Pageflow jbpm builds all these process languages natively on top of a single technology: the Process Virtual Machine (PVM). Features of jbpm FLEXIBLE AND SCALABLE PROCESS ENGINE - JBoss jbpm enables IT flexibility by supporting multiple-process languages with the same scalable process engine platform. PLUGGABLE ARCHITECTURE - JBoss jbpm's pluggable architecture is extensible and customizable on every level: within the process engine, for each process definition and every corresponding process instance. INTEGRATION WITH JBOSS SEAM - JBoss Seam is an application framework for simplifying and unifying the EJB and Java Server Faces (JSF) component models. EASY PROGRAMMING MODEL - JBoss jbpm provides a process-oriented programming model (jpdl) that blends the best of both Java and declarative programming techniques. jbpm is modular. It runs with JBoss Enterprise Middleware or any other Java EE middleware platform. It is available via subscriptions that include certified software, industry-leading support, updates and patches, documentation, and multi-year maintenance policy. jbpm is a standard Java application and does not need an application server. Enterprises that are interested in jbpm can use it without adding more complexity. jbpm can also be deployed in a web application or a standalone Java application.

9 jbpm Architecture Suite overview Source: jboss.com

10 jbpm can be deployed in three scenarios As application component To deliver process based applications As a component of the whole enterprise architecture This architecture allows to enhance process management capabilities and to better design workflows Intalio vs. jbpm an analysis From a business point of view the basic differences can be listed as jbpm is more oriented towards developers while Intalio focuses on business users with little technical experience. Intalio targets only business analysts while jbpm targets both analysts and developers without compromise. jbpm requires coding while Intalio is (almost) zero-code. jbpm requires multi steps for deployment while "One-click-deploy" with Intalio. jbpm is beta BPEL compliant but Intalio is fully BPEL compliant. jbpm does not support BPMN while Intalio does. jbpm is independent of databases, servers and embeddable in applications. jbpm is highly customizable(from developers point of view). Traditional vs. Open Source BPMS- Cost Analysis Even though the implementation cost depends upon the need of customers an initial BPM implementation using the traditional BPM suites costs somewhere near $ and it will cost almost double for enterprise solution. Half a million dollar is a pretty big an entry barrier for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Open source BPM suite act as the solution for these SMEs. Savings of more than 50% is assured with an open source solution provider.

11 About Aufait Aufait partners with Intalio, the leader in Open source BPM systems in developing comprehensive BPM suites. Aufait s expertise is in providing complete solutions to its customers from identifying the possible improvements to building the process systems including building enterprise wide networks. Aufait's skilled team has rich experience in helping clients in various sectors to harness the power of emerging technologies for streamlining business processes. Copyright 2009 Aufait Technologies Private Limited, Calicut, India. Website: