How do you know when you need a BPM solution?
My customer is looking for a Business Process Management (BPM) solution. What they need is simple document routing and an approval system. What are the drivers for implementing a BPM system? What is the threshold where a developer should suggest implementing a BPM solution vs. a workflow tool or custom development?
When does jBPM fit? When does a state machine built into an app fit? What problems should exist that determine that you need to go with a solution similar to jBPM?
I am looking for some real world examples of "we tried to build the solution ourselves, but ended up going with AquaLogic/jBPM/Lombardi because of _". Please fill in the blank.
Answer
BPM Acid Test (from Essential Business Process Modeling by Michael Havey, published by O'Reilly).
... BPM is suited only for applications with an essential sense of state or process - that is, applications that are process-oriented. An application passes the BPM acid test if it is legitimately process-oriented. The travel agency application, for example, passes the test because it is best understood in terms of state of the itinerary and is defined at all times by how far the itinerary has gotten. Other typical characteristics of a process-oriented application include the following:
- Long-running -
From start to finish, the process spans hours, days, weeks, months, or more.
- Persisted state -
Because the process is long-lived, its state is persisted to a database so that it outlasts the server hosting it
- Bursty, sleeps most of the time -
The process spends most of its time asleep, waiting for the next triggering event to occur, at which point it wakes up and performs a flurry of activities.
- Orchestration of system or human communications -
The process is responsible for managing and coordinating the communications of various system or human actors.
... For example, in an automated teller machine, which lets users query their account balance, withdraw cash, deposit checks and cash, and pay bills - any sense of process is fleeting and inessential; an ATM is an online transaction processor, not a process-oriented application.