Business process engine

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The term Business Process Engine refers to a use that relate to the (pure) execution (execution) focused processes. The processes to be carried out - i.e. the pre-structured sequence of individual activities - must be defined accordingly beforehand (in a process definition or a process template ); When the process defined in this way is actually carried out, the Business Process Engine simply processes all activities and their “connections” (ie the transitions from one activity to the next). The processes currently being executed are called process instances, in contrast to the process definition.

In terms of activities, a distinction is typically made between human activities (often also called tasks ) and machine activities, the latter are activities that are carried out by a (different) program, program part or module of another application. In the context of a service-oriented architecture , SOA services are often called or executed as machine activity.

Due to the ability of the business process engine to link the execution of human activities and machine activities in or to an entire process, such applications are often (and sensibly) used in the context of process integration or enterprise application integration.

Related topics

Related terms are workflow management system and business process management system . While a business process engine only takes care of the execution of process definitions (defined somewhere else), WfMS or BPMS systems contain the necessary additional functions to be able to define such processes (typically in the form of a process designer) and those in the business -Process Engine to monitor and control running process instances (nowadays known as Business Activity Monitoring , BAM).

In this sense, a business process engine is a necessary component of a WfMS (one could then also speak of a workflow engine ) or a BPMS.

Many programs in the field of enterprise application integration (enterprise application integration) have today toward an Enterprise Service Buses developed (ESB), and an ESB typically also is capable of single (atomic) services together (combined) to higher-value services to link. Since every such link (technically called service orchestration ) also requires something like an orchestration engine , some manufacturers (incorrectly) refer to their ESB as a business process engine (or WfMS or BPMS). The acid test for such designations is always the question of whether the engine (the ESB) is able to perform human activities in addition to machine activities; then and only then does the orchestration engine of the ESB deserve to be characterized as a business process engine.

Side note : Many orchestration engines today use the WS-BPEL standard to define executable processes . Such engines are essentially WS-BPEL interpreters . What is noteworthy in this context is the fact that the pure WS-BPEL 2.0 standard is not able to incorporate and carry out human activities in the definition. The manufacturers are therefore adding proprietary elements to the standard in order to make the necessary functions of a business process engine available despite WS-BPEL “conformity”.

Areas of application

A key area of ​​application for a business process engine is process automation and business process management. But even in a (full) SOA, business process engines for executing (human) processes have a fixed place.

Examples of business process engines

In the case of commercial providers, you can choose between providers who

  • from an integration-centric (SOA-centric) perspective [INT], or
  • from a human-centric perspective [HUM]

come, differentiate (alphabetical order):

  • Appian [HUM]
  • AristaFlow [INT]
  • Bosch Software Innovations [INT]
  • Comindware Tracker [INT]
  • Fuego [HUM]
  • Fujitsu Interstage [HUM]
  • IBM WebSphere Process Manager [INT]
  • Intalio [HUM]
  • Lombardi [HUM]
  • Microsoft [INT]
  • Oracle Business Process Manager [INT]
  • Pegasystems [HUM]
  • SAP NetWeaver Process Engine [INT]
  • Savvion [HUM]
  • SoftProject [INT]
  • Software AG webMethods BPMS [INT]
  • Tibco iProcess [HUM]
  • Tibco Rendezvous [INT]
  • Vitria [INT]

In most cases, the providers have expanded their business process engine into a complete business process management system (BPMS).

Open source business process engines include: a. to call: