Architects Rule! : BPM

Comparing Megavendors IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP in SaaS

pdestoop — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:08:00 GMT

Shift in application architecture over the years

A critical shift in the concept of an "application" is well under way. Once end users stopped creating their own monolithic applications, applications became vendor-constructed monoliths — mass-market-focused bundles of black-box or opaque functionality delivered on a vendor-specified release schedule. With the advent of new technical capabilities — such as integrated service environments (ISEs), BPMSs and road transport informatics (RTIs) — new architectural models (for example, SOA and electronic design automation) and overarching concepts (such as agility), the application is being recast. The black box of monolithic business logic is being cracked open, exposing access to smaller components/services (for example, SOA-based), each able to participate in a larger "composition" of application logic using BPM and ISE/service-oriented development of applications (SODA) process-centric concepts and driven by needs unanticipated by the original creator/vendor. Vendor-mandated and -delivered design is being replaced with organic design principles driven by end-user enterprises that are incorporating business process platforms (BPPs) and ISE/SODA, often blending cross-vendor functionality into new, one-off system designs. Finally, the traditional vendor construction-release cycle is being augmented with a user-driven approach to continuous improvement, driving change based on system-level and application-level feedback derived from monitoring and performance information offered by business activity monitoring (BAM), RTI, business process automation (BPA) and BPM. The overarching shift is one of increased agility for end users and a de-emphasis on the traditional, predefined application as an entity in its own right.

Source: Gartner ITxpo08

Technorati Tags: SOA, SaaS

SOA and BPM: you can't have the one without the other?

pdestoop — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:46:00 GMT

SOA is about obtaining better enterprise agility and....so is BPM...
SOA is about interconnecting "stovepiped" applications and...so is BPM...
SOA has business aspects and technological aspects and...so has BPM...

Articles about SOA usually contain info about BPM as if it was a part of SOA: having exposed business services does not provide agility per se, agility is obtained by composing these business services into meaningful and flexible end-to-end business processes.

So, clearly, SOA and BPM have many overlaps and intersections and many organizations currently have initiatives around SOA and BPM but...these are usually separate initiatives: BPM in the realm of business and SOA in the realm of IT.
Obviously this is not a good thing and to get the best business value out of both SOA AND BPM, especially for large strategic initiatives, the two initiatives should be combined.

Gartner has a great article that explains this very clearly - definitively worth a read! (this article was on the CD of the last SOA/BPM conference in Redmond - it is public info)

Technorati Tags: SOA, BPM

BizTalk extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation first CTP

pdestoop — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:07:00 GMT

As we know WF and Biztalk are related and both have their strenghts and weaknesses:

Windows Workflow Foundation provides a new programming model that developers can use for declaratively creating business logic in software.
BizTalk Server provides an enterprise class server with tools for IT Professionals and Business Analysts for hosting and managing business logic as process.

Would it not be great if we had best of both worlds? The BizTalk Server 2006 extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation allows for the use of both of these together building on both of their strengths:

It allows BizTalk developers to make use of the new WF programming model.
It provides WF developers an enterprise scalable server platform for hosting their WF models.

The basic idea is that you create a workflow model in Visual Studio using WCF constructs to specify messaging to and from the workflow. You run a tool which generates a matching BizTalk orchestration wrapper and you can deploy the workflow and the wrapper into BizTalk Server.

It is currently in development as an SDK sample for release to the community when BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is released.

Try it out early and provide feedback while it is still in development. More information

Technorati Tags: OBA, BPM

here.