Essential Business Process Modeling (Paperback)

Description:

Ten years ago, groupware bundled with email and calendar applications helped track the flow of work from person to person within an organization. Workflow in today's enterprise means more monitoring and orchestrating massive systems. A new technology called Business Process Management, or BPM, helps software architects and developers design, code, run, administer, and monitor complex network-based business processes.

BPM replaces those sketchy flowchart diagrams that business analysts draw on whiteboards with a precise model that uses standard graphical and XML representations, and an architecture that allows it converse with other services, systems, and users.

Sound complicated? It is. But it's downright frustrating when you have to search the Web for every little piece of information vital to the process. Essential Business Process Modeling gathers all the concepts, design, architecture, and standard specifications of BPM into one concise book, and offers hands-on examples that illustrate BPM's approach to process notation, execution, administration and monitoring.

Author Mike Havey demonstrates standard ways to code rigorous processes that are centerpieces of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which defines how networks interact so that one can perform a service for the other. His book also shows how BPM complements enterprise application integration (EAI), a method for moving from older applications to new ones, and Enterprise Service BUS for integrating different web services, messaging, and XML technologies into a single network. BPM, he says, is to this collection of services what a conductor is to musicians in an orchestra: it coordinates their actions in the performance of a larger composition.

Essential Business Process Modeling teaches you how to develop examples of process-oriented applications using free tools that can be run on an average PC or laptop. You'll also learn about BPM design patterns and best practices, as well as some underlying theory. The best way to monitor processes within an enterprise is with BPM, and the best way to navigate BPM is with this valuable book.

 

Preface

Part One. Concepts

1. Introduction to Business Process Modeling

     The Benefits of BPM

     BPM Acid Test: The Process-Oriented Application

     The Morass of BPM

     Workflow

     Roadmap

     Summary

     References

2. Prescription for a Good BPM Architecture

     Designing a Solution

     Components of the Design

     Standards

     Summary

     Reference

3. The Scenic Tour of Process Theory

     Family Tree

     The Pi-Calculus

     Petri Nets

     State Machines and Activity Diagrams

     Summary

     References

4. Process Design Patterns

     Design Patterns and the GoF

     Process Patterns and the P4

     Basic Patterns

     Advanced Branch and Join Patterns

     Structural Patterns

     Multiple Instances Patterns

     State-Based Patterns

     Cancellation Patterns

     Yet Another Workflow Language (YAWL)

     Additional Patterns

     Process Coding Standards

     Summary

     References

Part Two. standards

5. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)

     Anatomy of a Process

     BPEL Example

     BPEL in a Nutshell

     BPELJ

     BPEL and Patterns

     Summary

     References

6. BPMI Standards: BPMN and BPML

     BPMN

     BPML

     Summary

     Reference

7. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)

     The Reference Model

     XPDL

     WAPI

     WfXML

     Summary

     References

8. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): Choreography

     About the W3C

     Choreography and Orchestration

     WS-CDL

     WSCI

     WSCL

     Summary

     References

9. Other BPM Models

     OMG: Model-Driven BPM

     ebXML BPSS: Collaboration

     Microsoft XLANG: BPEL Forerunner

     IBM WSFL: BPEL Forerunner

     BPEL, XLANG, and WSFL

     Summary

     References

Part Three. Examples

10. Example: Human Workflow in Insurance Claims Processing

     Oracle BPEL Process Manager

     Setting Up the Environment

     Developing the Example

     Testing the Example

     Summary

     References

11. Example: Enterprise Message Broker

     What Is a Message Broker?

     Example: Employee Benefits Message Broker

     Summary

Key BPM Acronymns

index