10g versions followed on separate paths due to different approaches, but mainly due to differences in technology that were known to be huge.

Transcription

1 Oracle BPM 11g Platform Analysis May 2010 I was privileged to be invited to participate in "EMEA BPM 11g beta bootcamp" in April 2010, where I had close contact with the latest release of Oracle BPM 11g. Since my last evaluation of Oracle BPEL vs BEA Aqualogic (BPM platforms), the latter acquired by Oracle for about two years, I was expecting for the full integration of the products, as planned in the roadmap of both platforms. 10g versions followed on separate paths due to different approaches, but mainly due to differences in technology that were known to be huge. To illustrate two cases of the basic differences, with great risk and difficulty in integrating the products, I will approach the execution technology and the development platforms (JDeveloper and Eclipse). There were others, but those somehow complement themselves. In this new release, Oracle has solved the problem of the existence of two runtime platforms, by including in the same platform (evolved from SOA Suite) the support to BPMN 2.0. Referring the implementation, JDeveloper now integrates all the operations that were performed in Eclipse environment. Moreover, all the remaining operations were incorporated including the ones related to the administration of the platform.

2 BPEL or BPMN? And why not both? In the BPMS (Business Process Management Systems) market, when we mention the top platforms (see Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites 2009) it is noted the existence of two trends related with two of the existing standards: BPEL (Business Process Execution Language ) and BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation). While the first, BPEL, always had a greater focus on aspects of operation, thus remaining closer to the implementation, BPMN, although widely accepted, it is or rather it was just a notation for representing business processes. The scenery changed with BPMN 2.0 that, besides the representation, also integrates the execution standard. Like other manufacturers, Oracle includes in its array of products the support for BPEL execution (SOA Suite 11g), being that, more business oriented applications such as Oracle BPA (Oracle Business Process Analysis), will support, among other, the BPMN notation. It is known that, despite sometimes with great difficulty, a flow designed in BPMN can be transformed in BPEL for execution. However, the logic behind these two standards is quite different. Without getting into technical details, we can consider the design of a process in BPMN is made in a logic way with no major limitations, while a process in BPEL faces a great number of difficulties to implement more complex structures such as some kind of loops that frequently occur in business processes. In the limit, and this seems to me as the most relevant point, there is some probability that the business user will not recognize his process if designed in BPEL. Oracle BPM 11g platform support both scenarios, with the possibility of executing processes in BPEL (such as in the previous release), but also with the possibility of executing processes in PBMN 2.0, which, simply put, will perform the execution exactly as designed by the business user. This possibility will bring a number of benefits since it will eliminate the difficulty in transforming business processes into more technical languages (and vice versa), allowing at the same time for a complement between the two technologies, i.e. we can have a BPMN 2.0 focused in human interaction with blocks or pieces consisting of BPEL processes, in this case of services orchestration. All this is possible due to the basic architecture that relies in the logic of composition and services.

3 Supporting BPMN 2.0 While supporting this standard, the implementation of the design of business process will be extremely simple and much closer to the performers. The platform will support all BPMN elements we are familiar with, from swim lanes (representing the owner of a task) to gateways (representing different types of parallelism, exclusive exits, etc.). The design will always be validated by the platform (in this case JDeveloper) which will notify about potential problems in the flow. One of the most basic examples is the requirement of having a default output whenever there is a flow conditioned by a gateway. From what I was able to check, only the support to pools (pools including swim lanes representing departments or enterprises) is not done yet. Although this is not an essential element, in the manufacturer's roadmap this support will be available in future releases. Process workflow in BPMN 2.0

4 Without using BPA and to comply with the needs for processes composition made directly by business users, the web based application Process Composer was included. This application will allow you to start the design of business processes or even to create processes with other artifacts previously created such as sub processes. Despite being a web environment a toolbox can be easily used, and dragging artifacts can also be performed. BPM Process Composer

5 Simulation It is here, and in supporting the design process, that the integration work between the product that evolved from the platform, and BEA AquaLogic SOA Suite is most noticeable. With this version you can make the simulations needed to validate the business process even within JDeveloper, offering the user the features that come from the integrated platform. One of the most interesting points is the ability to see with values and colors, while in simulation, the bottlenecks that occur in the process and at the same time, add resources (with just one click) and automatically verifying the new behaviour. Among other tasks, the cost analysis (process and tasks) and verification of the frequency of executions of processes can be performed in simulation. Using this capability together with business users is possible to create different scenarios and check the impact analysis of the required changes. Process Simulation

6 Workspace Workspace is the new list of user tasks which adds to the previous list with collaboration modules and performance measurement. The user can check with graphics how his indicators are, including the amount of tasks with an open status. Business Process Workspace Business Rules Following the same logic of services and reuse, there are business rules that can be included into processes for decision making. The rules are also present in the routing, delegation and scaling of messages that are sent to the participants in the processes. It is one of the components that should be used more often, because it allows leaving out and detaching the business rules from the logic of the flow. The addition of a business rule is done by dragging the component from the toolbox to the point of the process. By applying the same logic of service is intended that the rules are generally reused, thus having one single point of change in the algorithm or in the values used in conditions. Decision tables can also be linked to the rule so the implementation and maintenance of the rules is simpler.

7 Composition Despite all the news in this version of the platform, it is in the SCA (Service Component Architecture) that the power and openness of the platform can be perceived. When designing an application, the architect has the composite module available, which is merely the place where the various modules built can be assembled and aggregated. Taking the premise of this platform, in which everything can be a service, you can notice that the BPMN 2.0 processes are also part of this composition both as consumers of other services and as service provider. It is easy to provide a specific BPMN 2.0 process for being called by other components. It is also possible to merge the various existing possibilities, namely the existence of a BPMN 2.0 process, that in turn, includes human tasks, rules, services, BPEL processes, etc. The watchword is really split, implement and compose in applications. Knowing that there are probably no processes implementations and BPMS projects without integrations, the connection with external systems becomes an essential subject. After exposure and subsequent registration of the service, the use will be much easier. Also, the mechanism connecting to input data of the services is quite easier and even more complex XPATH methods can be used if necessary. Services composition

8 KPI Indicators (key performance indicators) A key component of BPMS is the existence of BAM (business activity monitoring) that allows us, in real time, to analyze what is happening in the business processes. Oracle BAM, according to some market analysis, is the best of the market in its category and is included in the suite. The measurement of indicators related to metadata is available out of the box, thus accessing indicators of processes and tasks, just to point the most relevant. Furthermore it is possible to measure data more closely related to business information such as verification of sales by geographic area. This requires inserting measurement points or configure the existing (eg, tasks) with what we want to measure. After defining the control points, metadata indicators can be related to business data in order to obtain highly relevant indicators to drive business. An example might be a temporal analysis with concepts such as department and product of the sales processes by region. All this, in real time, allowing managers to take timely decisions about what is happening at that moment. If an indicator reaches a certain preset value, events can be launched, such as for example s All sorts of graphics are available, from bar, pie, area, lines, etc.. Besides filtering by value or type, they all allow navigation in drill down mode, such as in ordinary cases, navigation by year, quarter, month, week, and day. BAM Business Activity Monitoring João Assunção is CTO at Link Consulting with over 10 years experience in the definition of methodologies, architecture, implementation and leadership of BPM projects. Has evaluated several BPM platforms such as Pegasystems SmartBPM, BEA AquaLogic, Oracle SOA Suite, IBM Websphere, Lombardi TeamWorks, Tibco iprocess, Sun, OpenText, among other.