{"id":35,"date":"2006-07-19T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2006-07-19T20:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=35"},"modified":"2006-07-19T12:00:45","modified_gmt":"2006-07-19T20:00:45","slug":"will-bpmn-20-make-bpel-irrelevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/will-bpmn-20-make-bpel-irrelevant\/","title":{"rendered":"Will BPMN 2.0 make BPEL irrelevant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As technology is speeding up, the lifecycle of standards is shrinking.\u00a0 Business Process Execution Language<\/a> or BPEL is one good example.\u00a0 BPEL has its origins in competing standards sponsored by IBM<\/a> and Microsoft<\/a>, WSFL<\/a> and Xlang<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0The two languages were merged in April 2003 and over just a period of three years BPEL has become the most popular business process<\/a> execution language.\u00a0\u00a0BPEL is used extensively\u00a0in SOA<\/a> environments because\u00a0BPEL was designed with Web Services<\/a> in mind and\u00a0this matches well with the tight coupling of SOA\u00a0and\u00a0Web Services.\u00a0 While generally complementary, BPEL is now being challenged by\u00a0a different technology from\u00a0Object Management Group<\/a> OMG called Business Process Modeling Notation<\/a> (BPMN).<\/p>\n

BPEL is a language that describes the flow and coordination of interactions between published business component\u00a0interfaces.\u00a0 Typically those interfaces are implemented as Web Services.\u00a0 Note that the “EL” at the end of the BPEL acronym refers it as an “execution language”\u00a0as distinguished from a\u00a0“notational language”.\u00a0 What this means is that while BPEL is a “workflow tool”, it doesn’t really provide any kind of graphical layout modeling capabilities.\u00a0 As such, it is a fairly low-level\u00a0language based on XML that provides a standard way for\u00a0describing the business process flow.\u00a0 BPEL language is used to create\u00a0instructions that are fed into a BPEL server that in turn coordinates the activities of the business process.<\/p>\n

Working with raw BPEL requires\u00a0a solid\u00a0understanding of\u00a0XML and software logic.\u00a0 BPEL requires that business requirements be first captured and\u00a0translated\u00a0before being\u00a0rendered into the BPEL logic.\u00a0 The gap between specification and BPEL implementation can isolate business analysts from IT groups.\u00a0 The solution is to bridge the gap between these two groups by creating higher level model tools that allow the graphic creation of a the business process flow and output BPEL language.\u00a0 These kind of tools exist, but there is no standard for these higher level tools.\u00a0 This is where BPMN comes in the picture by attempting to standardize business process modeling.<\/p>\n

BPMN is a notational language that can graphically describe business processes.\u00a0 With BPMN, the process flow is depicted with a network of lines showing interactions between components represented as shapes like circles, rectangles and diamonds.\u00a0 It provides standardization\u00a0in\u00a0creating workflow diagrams.\u00a0 Graphic workflows represent the classic image of what “Workflow<\/a>” is all about.<\/p>\n

\"BPMN<\/a><\/div>\n

Because BPMN describes the business process\u00a0from a higher-level perspective, it can include information about human steps and interactions in the process that fall outside of the control of software.<\/p>\n

So, BPMN and BPEL seem to be complementary technologies and perhaps that is how the two will develop:\u00a0 BPMN tools would be used during business analysis and modeling, and from the BPMN model, a BPEL representation would be generated and output and used for execution.<\/p>\n

Stepping back a little more though we see that BPMN and BPEL both express the flow of the business process, but the BPMN process model representation is more useful to the\u00a0business analyst.\u00a0 BPMN is addressing the model level and BPEL addresses execution.\u00a0 Because of that, the importance of\u00a0having a standard for the execution language is less relevant.\u00a0 BPMN models can be exchanged and exactly how the models are translated and executed is less relevant.<\/p>\n

What happens next isn’t clear.\u00a0 It should be noted that BPEL may further evolve and this is likely to happen because of its current high level of acceptance.\u00a0\u00a0Another factor in how this all plays out is whether BPMN will be actually accepted.\u00a0 OMG intiatives have not always been met with unanimous acceptance.\u00a0 Right now though the reaction to BPMN 2.0 seems positive, so it is likely that BPMN-based tools should begin appearing.<\/p>\n

In any event, the good thing is that after many years of very many proprietary\u00a0tools for\u00a0both business process modeling and execution\u00a0that the industry will be\u00a0moving towards standardization.\u00a0 At Formtek<\/a>, we frequently see business solutions comprised of both ECM and BPM components, and as a partner with Oracle<\/a>, we are very familiar with Oracle’s BPEL Process Manager<\/a>.\u00a0 Both Oracle and IBM have been strong proponents of BPEL technology.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see the evolution of these technologies and the response of leading vendors like Oracle in this area over the next 18-24 months.<\/p>\n

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As technology is speeding up, the lifecycle of standards is shrinking.\u00a0 Business Process Execution Language or BPEL is one good example.\u00a0 BPEL has its origins in competing standards sponsored by IBM and Microsoft, WSFL and Xlang.\u00a0 \u00a0The two languages were…<\/span><\/p>\n

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