Re: [ebxml-bp] [ebBP] 7/21/2004: Guiding Principles - BPMN and BPSS

[Stephen A White <wstephe@us.ibm.com>]

Just to confirm what Tony was saying...

BPMN was developed by a different working
group than the one that developed BPML. The make up of the Notation Working
Group was mainly process modeling tool vendors and some process modeling
consultants. We were chartered with two main goals: 1) develop a process
modeling notation appropriate for business people, and 2) develop a bridge
to a process execution language. Originally, that was BPML, but this was
changed to BPEL when that seemed more appropriate. We also were charted
to be able to notate B2B situations. We have some of this already and,
thus, we are not likely far off in handling what is in ebXML BP.

We will have some comments and questions
for your proposal soon.

-Steve

David RR Webber <david@drrw.info>

09/08/2004 06:04 AM

To	Tony Fletcher <tony_fletcher@btopenworld.com>
cc	Jean-Jacques Dubray <jeanjadu@Attachmate.com>, "'Monica J. Martin'" <Monica.Martin@Sun.COM>, "'ebXML BP'" <ebxml-bp@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject	Re: [ebxml-bp] [ebBP] 7/21/2004: Guiding Principles - BPMN and BPSS

Tony,

Wow! 

I based my comment on a review of the spec' a while back when the BPMN
was in it - I had
no idea it was two teams!  I'll have to get the scoop from Howard
Smith 
on this sometime!!

Anyway - what is interesting is that I started with this same premise 
back last year - using
VisualScript to create an 'uber model' that could then be generated into
BPSS, BPEL, et al.

I worked with a couple of vendors too - and their own internal BPM 
engines script syntaxing,
and at first this seemed very promising.

Anyway - the wheel basically fell off this wagon when I realized that 
BPEL was diverging into
a 4GL for EAI vendors - with a arcane and complex behavioural execution
model - and more
importantly was not deterministic nor supported context or business 
transaction handling.
It's just attempting to solve a completely different problem set - one
is a train - the other a
hydrofoil triple-hulled boat design!

So - I've ended up focusing on BPSS as the core function set.   My
current thoughts envision
being able to use a modified set of BPMN symbols to represent BPSS 
concepts (where they
are close) and then being able to write out both BPSS XML instances and
then either
predicates and assertions for a Prolog engine like SWI Prolog / and / or
scripting for something 
like BEA, MQSeries or similar integration server.

The more things change they more they come full circle it seems!! ; -)

Cheers, DW.

Tony Fletcher wrote:

>Dear David, Jean-Jacques and others,
>
>Now I have caught up on this topic, I will try to keep up, for awhile
>anyway!
>
>Thank you, Jean-Jacques, for your message.  I will try to find
your mail
>with the proposal and take a look.
>
>Just a few corrections for David (as I participated in BPMI and BPMN
for
>about year ceasing at the back end of last year).
>
>BPMI (Business Process Management Initiative) is the organisation.
 BPML is
>the XML based business process description language they produced (a
year or
>more ago now).  No, it is not true to say that BPMN (Business
Process
>Management Notation) is the visual counterpart of BPML.  I was
not in at the
>beginning, but I understand that it was developed independently, with
a
>rather different set of people (some overlap I am sure) more based
on
>previous experience with process visualisation tools than any XML language.
>It used to have a section indicating how to approach representing a
BPMN
>diagram in BPML, however for the final version 1.0 of the BPMN specification
>that was removed and guidance on how to map to a BPEL4WS representation
>(Section 6) put in instead (yes, currently it is BPEL4WS, the proprietary
>version that was submitted to OASIS at the start of the WSBPEL TC -
when
>that TC produces a version of BPEL then the BPMN folks may produce
a new
>version of BPMN that shows how to map to it instead).  Overall
the design
>was aimed at visualisation tools rather than XML representation but
with the
>idea / hope that it would be able to map to several different 'popular'
XML
>BP languages such as BPML, BPEL, BPSS and the WfMC's XPDL.
>
>Best Regards     Tony
>A M Fletcher
> 
>Cohesions  (TM)
> 
>Business transaction management software for application coordination
>www.choreology.com
> 
>Choreology Ltd., 68 Lombard Street, London EC3V 9LJ     UK
>Tel: +44 (0) 1473 729537   Fax: +44 (0) 870 7390077  Mobile:
+44 (0) 7801
>948219
>tony.fletcher@choreology.com     (Home: amfletcher@iee.org)
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David RR Webber [mailto:david@drrw.info] 
>Sent: 07 September 2004 13:36
>To: Tony Fletcher
>Cc: 'Monica J. Martin'; 'ebXML BP'
>Subject: Re: [ebxml-bp] [ebBP] 7/21/2004: Guiding Principles - BPMN
and BPSS
>
>
>Tony,
>
>I thought that was BPMI?!?  The BPMN is supposed to be the visualization
>for that?
>
>Anyway - we can certainly use it to generate BPSS - and that is what
I'm 
>looking at - how
>to harmonize the BPSS diagrams I've been creating so far - that are
>loosely based on UML
>activity diagrams with BPMI - so that people used to creating BPMN
can 
>seamlessly
>cross over to using BPSS....
>
>Cheers. DW
>
>
>  
>