9 Replies Latest reply on Dec 29, 2011 5:52 AM by eaa

    Questionnaire on JBPM

    bhargavdesai99

      Hi ,

       

       

              On insistance of Tihomir Surdilovic i m posting all my Questions , doubts in one thread here.  Some of the Questions may appear very generic , with no reference to any business process or use case . Thanks in advance for all the help.

       

      Questions:

       

      1. Does jBPM provide any role - based access control ? How ? In what way ?

       

      2. Are all actions and changes made at runtime auditable ? Can you site any example.

       

      3. Does jBPM integrate with external systems for availability management? Availability Managements in the sense i mean the use of            mechanisms such as recovery and fail-over to support the system availability.


      4. Are there any automated failover capabilities?


      5. Does the solution support distribution of the execution environment?


      6. Does the solution provide central logging, especially if distributed?


      7.Can an administrator drill down from high level workflows through to the low level process or even rules? In what way ?


      8.Can the runtime data be easily debugged? A complete trace is available? I know say for eg breakpoints cannot be set when debugging a unit test . So any other way is it possible to debug runtime data. ?


      9.Can the deployment(say deployment of assets like flows , rules ) be automated via a continuous integration facility, e.g. via Ant, Maven, Hudson?

       

      10.Does jBPM support Service Component Architecture (SCA) and XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) ?

       

      11.Does jBPM support integration with Visio/MS Office in order to have a technology agnostic repository of workflows?

       

      12.Can Rules be modified at run-time ?

       

      13.Are there any pre-defined patterns, built-in functionality or settings to allow identification of technical errors or bottlenecks ? Technical errors as in errors causing a business rule or process failure.

       

      14. KPIs(key process indicators) and business rules can support multiple calendars (peak time, vacation, week-end…) both for the severity and the associated action to avoid or reduce the impact or severity of a fault close to the cut-off time.

      How and to which extent does jBPM  allow and facilitate multiple calendars’ setup and amendments including the assignment of such rule, KPIs to those calendars and different contexts?

       

      15. How does the interaction between process, service and data tiers occur ? Which protocols are used ?

       

      16. Does jBPM provide a seamless solution to integrate different application styles like , SOA, CEP and Web Applications? One possible scenario is the provisioning of hooks for each application styles, via adapters, or a real composition, like in SCA.

       

      17. Does the IDE provide seamless views into DBMS , ERPs ? If yes ,  how ?

       

      18. Does the IDE provide a data-driven view in order to model process data focus on data processing?

       

      19. Does the IDE provide visual development capabilities? Specially features beyond the simple process modeling.

       

      20. Can jBPM be deployed on cloud ?

       

      21. Can I&AM systems be integrated? If yes, which?

       



        • 1. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
          zino

          20. Can jBPM be deployed on cloud ?

           

          Yes.

          • 2. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
            eaa

            1. Does jBPM provide any role - based access control ? How ? In what way ?

            Access control to what? Remember, jBPM5 is a framework with some tools around it. So I'm not sure if you are talking about the framework itself, Guvnor, the process editor, the eclipse plugin, the jbpm-console or what...

             

            7.Can an administrator drill down from high level workflows through to the low level process or even rules? In what way ?

            No.

             

            9.Can the deployment(say deployment of assets like flows , rules ) be automated via a continuous integration facility, e.g. via Ant, Maven, Hudson?

            It depends in your solution. For example, if you are using Guvnor as the repository and jBPM-Console as the runtime environment, then you can deploy your processes using Guvnor. If you are using your own runtime and maintaining your assets in your own repository, you need to make this integration. You can read more about Drools' Knowledge Agent to see how part of this integration can be achieved.

             

            10.Does jBPM support Service Component Architecture (SCA) and XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) ?

            Not sure about SCA, but XPDL is not supported. The only process definition language supported by jBPM is BPMN2.

             

            11.Does jBPM support integration with Visio/MS Office in order to have a technology agnostic repository of workflows?

            jBPM5 supports BPMN2 standard (with some extensions). I'm not saying it supports 100% BPMN2, but its goal is to run BPMN2 processes. If you can create BPMN2 processes that include the extensions needed by jBPM using other tools, then you can run those processes in jBPM5. 

             

            12.Can Rules be modified at run-time ?

            Yes. Read about Drools' Knowledge Agent.

             

            15. How does the interaction between process, service and data tiers occur ? Which protocols are used ?

            Read about WorkItems (aka Task Nodes) and WorkItemHandlers

             

            17. Does the IDE provide seamless views into DBMS , ERPs ? If yes ,  how ?

            No. Unles you are using Eclipse plugin along with some other plugins that allow you to do that

             

            18. Does the IDE provide a data-driven view in order to model process data focus on data processing?

            No AFAIK.

             

            19. Does the IDE provide visual development capabilities? Specially features beyond the simple process modeling.

            You have 2 IDEs: Eclipse plugin and process-designer (integrated in Guvnor). Both IDEs are BPMN2 designers. Nothing more, nothing less

             

            20. Can I&AM systems be integrated? If yes, which?

            Nothing out of the box.


            1 of 1 people found this helpful
            • 3. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
              bhargavdesai99

              Thanks

              • 4. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                bhargavdesai99

                Reply to your answer to Q.1

                I m asking for the jBPM framework itself ..

                 

                cheers,

                Bhargav

                • 5. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                  eaa

                  You can see jBPM5 as a set of APIs that let you execute BPMN2 diagrams. In fact, using the framework is relatively easy:

                  • ksession.startProcess();
                  • ksession.signalEvent();
                  • ksessiong.getWorkItemManager().completeWorkItem()
                  • Human Task client APIS to complete, delegate, escalate Human Tasks

                   

                  There are a few more methods, but these are the most important.

                   

                  So, who is in charge of execute these methods is up to your own application. You have to code the way users interact with the framework.

                   

                  There is a 'canned' solution called jBPM-Console that serves as a runtime environment for your processes. If the features provided by this application are enough for you (I'm 80% they are not ) you can use it. Otherwise, you will need to code your own application what will be in charge of create a kbase, add all the assets to the kbase, create a ksession when it corresponds, initiate th processes when needed, etc.

                  Of course, jBPM-Console is open source, so you can use it as a base to your own implementation.

                  • 6. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                    bhargavdesai99

                    Hi Esteban Aliverti ,

                     

                                                 Sorry but i could not understand , how the usage of this API or creating a code (kbase n all) help in achieving role - based access control . Role based control would be like roles assigned to different users who can access the JBPM or is it something else..?? Maybe i m not getting your point.

                     

                     

                    Thanks,

                    Bhargav

                    • 7. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                      heathcliff

                      ie. You have a human task and this taks is assigned to some user. You can view all taks in all prcesses, you can view tasks of only your tasks, you can view tasks in your group etc... AFAIK you only set users/groups and call methods in your services to get tasks/processes depanding or user/group or all. Its up to you to restrict acces in your services. you call a method to show all tasks of user "krisv" and its up to you in your services to allo certain users to be able to see results etc.

                      1 of 1 people found this helpful
                      • 8. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                        bhargavdesai99

                        Thanks Adam

                        • 9. Re: Questionnaire on JBPM
                          eaa

                          Asking about security in jBPM5 framework is like asking about security in xstream or log4j. They are frameworks that you use inside your applications. Your applications are in charge of the security, but not the framework itself.

                          Now, if you are asking about Human Task Server in jBPM5, then Adam Bach's answer can help you.