Chapter Nine. Other BPM Models

THE DOMINANT BPM STANDARDSBPMI'S BPML AND BPMN SPECS, the works of the WfMC, W3C's choreography, and the mighty BPELwere examined in detail in previous chapters. This chapter presents four additional models that are important but peripheral. Each elucidates an important idea that merits attention, but none is a major contemporary core BPM approach. Consequently, they require a briefer treatment than that of the major standards. The four models are:

Object Management Group process definition and process runtime interface models

The OMG is soliciting proposals for abstract models for business process definitions and process runtime interfaces. The nature of these models and their significance is examined later in this chapter.

Microsoft XLANG

Microsoft, as one of the key BPEL authors, made sure the best ideas of its earlier XLANG language were woven into the fabric of BPEL. BPEL fans should know a little about the nature of XLANG and its influence on BPEL.

IBM Web Services Flow Language

WSFL is another XML process language that, like XLANG, is dead but, thanks to IBM's BPEL authors, lives on in BPEL. WSFL's directed graph approach is examined as an influencer of BPEL.

OASIS Business Process Specification Schema

Chapter 8 introduced the concepts of orchestration and choreography. BPSS is the leading collaboration standard, and is examined from the collaborative perspective.