Patterns-based Evaluation of Open Source BPM Systems: The Cases of jBPM, OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark

In keeping with the proliferation of free software development initiatives and the increased interest in the business process management domain, many open source workflow and business process management systems have appeared during the last few years and are now under active development. This upsurge gives rise to two important questions: what are the capabilities of these systems? and how do they compare to each other and to their closed source counterparts? i.e. in other words what is the state-of-the-art in the area?. To gain an insight into the area, we have conducted an in-depth analysis of three of the major open source workflow management systems - jBPM, OpenWFE and Enhydra Shark, the results of which are reported here. This analysis is based on the workflow patterns framework and provides a continuation of the series of evaluations performed using the same framework on closed source systems, business process modeling languages and web-service composition standards. The results from evaluations of the three open source systems are compared with each other and also with the results from evaluations of three representative closed source systems - Staffware, WebSphere MQ and Oracle BPEL PM, documented in earlier works. The overall conclusion is that open source systems are targeted more toward developers rather than business analysts. They generally provide less support for the patterns than closed source systems, particularly with respect to the resource perspective which describes the various ways in which work is distributed amongst business users and managed through to completion

Aspect oriented business process modeling with precedence

Complexity is a major concern which is aimed to be overcome by people through modeling. One way of reducing complexity is separation of concerns, e.g. separation of business process from applications. One sort of concerns are cross-cutting concerns i.e. concerns which are scattered and tangled through one of several models. In business process management, examples of such concerns are security and privacy policies. To deal with these cross-cutting concerns, the aspect orientated approach was introduced in the software development area and recently also in the business process management area. The work presented in this paper elaborates on aspect oriented process modelling. It extends earlier work by defining a mechanism for capturing multiple concerns and specifying a precedence order according to which they should be handled in a process. A formal syntax of the notation is presented precisely capturing the extended concepts and mechanisms. Finally, the relevant of the approach is demonstrated through a case study

Operational semantics of aspects in Business Process Management

Aspect orientation is an important approach to address complexity of cross-cutting concerns in Information Systems. This approach encapsulates these concerns separately and compose them to the main module when needed. Although there a different works which shows how this separation should be performed in process models, the composition of them is an open area. In this paper, we demonstrate the semantics of a service which enables this composition. The result can also be used as a blueprint to implement the service to support aspect orientation in Business Process Management area

Conceptual patterns for reuse in information systems analysis

Abstract: Reuse of already existing resources and solutions has always been a strategy for reducing the costs in the information systems development process. Construction and organization of small pieces of reusable solutions, also called patterns, in libraries for reuse support, has taken a central place within research during the last years. In this paper, a methodology for collecting conceptual patterns and a navigation structure for suggesting the most suitable one during the information systems analysis process are suggested. The study has, so far, been carried out on one domain only, but it provides a theoretical background for research on other domains as well.

Tool support for reuse of analysis patterns – a case study

Abstract: The size and complexity of modern information systems together with requirements for short development time increase the demands for reuse of already existing solutions. The idea of reuse itself is not novel and the ability of reuse is even a part of the learning process. However, not much support for reuse can be found for the analysis phase of information systems design. Collecting reusable solutions, called patterns, in a library and supporting the search for an appropriate pattern within such a library is one approach addressed in this area. A tool for this purpose has been partly implemented and the results from a case study testing this tool are reported here.

On the Suitability of UML 2.0 Activity Diagrams for Business Process Modelling

UML is posited as the "swiss army knife" for systems modelling and design activities. It embodies a number of modelling formalisms that have broad applicability in capturing both the static and dynamic aspects of software systems. One area of UML that has received particular attention is that of Activity Diagrams (ADs), which provide a high-level means of modelling dynamic system behaviour. In this paper we examine the suitability of UML 2.0 Activity Diagrams for business process modelling, using the Workflow Patterns as an evaluation framework. The Workflow Patterns are a collection of patterns developed for assessing control-flow, data and resource capabilities in the area of Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS). In doing so, we provide a comprehensive evaluation of the capabilities of UML 2.0 ADs, and their strengths and weaknesses when utilised for business process modelling