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| Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) |
[March 08, 2001] "BPMI.org (the Business Process Management Initiative) is a non-profit organization that empowers companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. The Initiative's mission is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization. BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors for marketing their implementations, and supports businesses for using Business Process Management technologies. On the back-end, technology integration standards such as XML Schema, SOAP, and J2EE enable the convergence of legacy infrastructures toward process-oriented enterprise computing. On the front-end, emerging protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk support the process-level collaboration among business partners. BPMI.org leverages those converging trends by developing technologies that empower companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. BPMI.org defines open specifications, such as the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), and the Business Process Query Language (BPQL), that will enable the standards-based management of e-Business processes with forthcoming Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), in much the same way SQL enabled the standards-based management of business data with off-the-shelf Database Management Systems (DBMS)."
Scope: "BPMI.org considers an e-Business process conducted among two business partners as made of three parts: a Public Interface and two Private Implementations (one for each partner). The Public Interface is common to the partners and is supported by protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk. The Private Implementations are specific to every partner and are described in any executable language. BPML is one such language. Once developed, the Private Implementation of an e-Business process must be deployed on a platform that will actually execute it. For this purpose, BPMI.org defines BPQL, a standard management interface for the deployment and execution of e-Business processes. Furthermore, BPQL relies on UDDI in order to provide a standard way to register, advertise, and discover the Public Interfaces of e-Business processes..."
[August 29, 2003] BPMI.org Releases Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Version 1.0. The BPMI Notation Working Group has announced the release of a public draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN Version 1.0). The BPMN specification "provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. As an amalgamation of best practices within the business modeling community, BPMN provides a simple, standardized means of communicating process information to other business users, process implementers, customers, and suppliers. BPMN 1.0 allows different XML-based process languages, e.g., Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS v1.1) and Business Process Modeling Language (BPML v1.0), to be visualized using common elements. BPMN is a comprehensive notation and points toward the convergence of open standards for business process management by enabling practitioners to more easily exchange business process models between different business process languages using a standardized graphical notation."
[March 08, 2001] BPMI.org Releases Draft Specification for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) has announced the publication of a proposed draft specification for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is "a meta-language for the modeling of business processes,just as XML is a meta-language for the modeling of business data. BPML provides an abstracted execution model for collaborative and transactional business processes that span multiple applications and business partners,behind the firewall and over the Internet,across multiple verticals." Appendix A of the 155-page 'Version 0.4' specification supplies the XML schema for BPML; future working drafts of BPML are expected to track with the W3C XML Schema specification. The BPMI initiative is supported by some 84 members; its mission "is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization. BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors for marketing their implementations, and supports businesses for using Business Process Management technologies." Coordinate with BPML, BPMI.org is developing a specification for The Business Process Query Language (BPQL). BPQL "is a management interface to a business process management infrastructure that includes a process execution facility (Process Server) and a process deployment facility (Process Repository). The BPQL interface to a Process Server enables business analysts to query the state and control the execution of process instances managed by the Process Server. This interface is based on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)."
BPMI.org Members [2001-03-05] included: Action Technologies, Altaworks, AP Engines, ATG, Attunity, Aventail, BEA, Black Pearl, Blaze Software, Bowstreet, British American Tobacco, bTrade.com, BusinessThreads, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CASEwise, CNT, Concentus, Consilient, CSC, Covasoft, CrossWorlds, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Deloitte Consulting, Ectone, Enterworks, Entricom, ePatterns, Epiance, Epicentric, Evidian, eXcelon, Exterprise, Extricity, FileNET, Fuegotech, Fujitsu, Genient, Gollaborate, Hewlett-Packard, Holosofx, IBM, Infosys, Intalio, Intraspect, Jamcracker, KTI, Level 8, Lombardi Software, MEGA International, MERANT, Mercator, Metaserver, NextSet, Nortel Networks, NOVO, Ontology.Org, OSM, Pegasystems, Popkin Software, ProActivity, Proforma, PureEdge, Reef, Rycon, S1, SeeBeyond, SilverStream, SpiritSoft, Staffware, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, Sungard Business Integration, Suplicity, Sybase, Taviz, TechSpan, TIBCO, Timogen Systems, Versata, VerticalNet, Verve, XML Global, XMLFund.
[September 07, 2000] As of September 2000, BPMI.org co-founders include: Aventail Corporation, Black Pearl, Blaze Software, Bowstreet, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S., Computer Sciences Corporation, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Entricom, Intalio, Ontology.Org, S1 Corporation, Versata, VerticalNet, Verve, and XMLFund.
[August 08, 2000] An announcement from Intalio, Inc. describes the formation of a industry group "to define standards for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners." Sixteen companies and organizations have founded the initiative. The initiative's first deliverable is an XML schema formalizing a 'Business Process Modeling Language (BPML).' "The first draft of the BPML Schema will be released to the public in Q4 2000 and cover transactions and compensating transactions, dataflow, messages and scheduled events, business rules, security roles, and exceptions. BPMI.org will eventually lead to the additional development of a management protocol based on industry standards such as SOAP and DAV for the deployment and management of business processes modeled accordingly to the forthcoming BPML Schema. The [related] Business Process Query Language (BPQL) defines a standard interface to forthcoming Business Process Management Systems (BPMS). It will allow system administrators to manage the BPMS and business analysts to query instances of business processes running on it. The BPML Schema will initially cover transactions and compensating transactions, dataflow, messages and scheduled events, business rules, security roles, and exceptions. The covering of distributed resources might be eventually added in order to support the workflow-related standards developed by the WfMC. BPMI.org will put a very strong emphasis on three major aspects: First, the BPML Schema will be used by Business Process Management Systems for mission-critical applications and therefore must offer an explicit support for synchronous and asynchronous distributed transactions. Second, the BPML Schema will be used for modeling business processes deployed behind the firewall and over the Internet, and therefore must offer advanced capabilities related to security. Finally, the BPML Schema will be used through Integrated Development Environments allowing business analysts, system analysts and developers to collaborate over the entire project's lifecycle, and therefore must offer advanced capabilities related to project management. [...] BPMI.org and ebXML are addressing complementary aspects of e-Business process integration. While ebXML provides a standard way to manage Collaborative Business Processes (CBP), BPMI.org focuses on the modeling, deployment, and management of Enterprise Business Processes (EBP)." From the announcement: "Intalio, the Business Process Management Company, with Aventail, Black Pearl, Blaze Software, Bowstreet, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Computer Sciences Corporation, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Entricom, Ontology.Org, S1 Corporation, Versata, VerticalNet, Verve, and XMLFund announced today that they will form a group to define standards for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The XML-based standards generated from the initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP. The first deliverable of the Business Process Management Initiative will be the specification of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is an XML Schema that provides a standard way to model mission-critical business processes. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is the new Internet standard for marking up data to facilitate exchanges of information between businesses, independently of applications and platforms. By covering many dimensions of business process modeling that are specific to processes deployed internally to the enterprise, including business rules, security roles, distributed transactions, compensating transactions, and exception handling, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML. The Business Process Modeling Language will enable the enterprise to model, deploy, and manage business processes such as order management, customer care, demand planning, product development, and strategic sourcing. This will allow the IT infrastructure to provide greater adaptability to the business of the enterprise and easier manageability of constantly evolving business processes, eventually leading to higher levels of profitability."
[July 03, 2003] "Twenty-First Century Business Architecture. The Future is Here." By Howard Smith (Europe CTO, Computer Sciences Corporation; Co-chair, Business Process Management Initiative) and Peter Fingar (Executive Partner, the Greystone Group). In Web Services Journal Volume 3, Issue 7 (July 2003), pages 10-14. WSJ Special Issue on BPM; see the issue editorial by Sean Rhody. "While the vision of process management is not new, existing theories and systems have not been able to cope with the reality of business processes -- until now. By placing business processes on center stage, as first class citizens in computing, corporations can gain the capabilities they need to innovate, reenergize performance, and deliver the value today's markets demand. Business process management (BPM) systems discover what you do, and then manage the life cycle of improvement and optimization in a way that translates directly to operation. They see the world in terms of processes using notations and representations business people intuitively understand, and reflect the nature of the way business has to be -- connected, collaborative, asynchronous, coordinated, conversational, and constantly changing... Many in the IT industry perceive BPM only as a better, faster, cheaper way to integrate applications, and this view is exacerbated by the focus on languages used to support Web services orchestration, such as BPEL. For all that is written about such languages you would think that BPM is only about systems interoperability, application integration, and a smart new way to develop more software. This thinking totally misses the point. BPM is about better, faster, cheaper business processes, not better, faster, cheaper technology. BPM technologies provide direct representation of business processes, and then open those processes to complete life-cycle management: from discovery to design, deployment, execution, operations, analysis, and optimization... In short, integration technology, however wrapped in process clothing, solves only an integration need. This is not to say that integration products cannot evolve to become BPM products, or that BPM products cannot provide integration, but the distinction needs to be made. What distinguishes BPMS is its central focus on the direct representation and manipulation of business processes, just as RDBMS provides the representation and manipulation of business data and the spreadsheet provides the representation and manipulation of numerical data... Process languages, such as the vendor-sponsored Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS), will converge and evolve towards the needs of a BPMS with a solid mathematical underpinning. Today, BPEL is primarily advocated for loosely coupled application integration and development, but as the needs for BPM go well beyond Web services and simple workflow requirements, BPEL will require the same theoretical foundation. CIOs will rightly disregard any other simplistic BPM 'layer' as 'yet another point solution' unless BPM systems can be shown that they embody a strong formal model of enterprise computing and mobile processes. Only then can BPMS migrate from a niche category to a mainstream platform, similar to what companies already know and understand in other areas of IT support such as relational data management and network management. BPM is far more than another way to develop applications. BPMS is a platform that will support a raft of new processes, tools, and applications. A sales campaign isn't a software application -- it's an application of process management... As CAD/CAM systems enabled computer-integrated and 'just-in-time' manufacturing, BPM can facilitate collaborative 'just-in-time' business processes and a new era of process manufacturing. Those players in the IT industry that master BPM will share the new wealth with their customers: productivity gains, innovation, and lowered costs like those the industrial design and manufacturing industries have already realized as a result of implementing a direct path from design to execution..." [alt URL] [February 12, 2003] "Intalio Ships Intalio|n³ 2.0. New End-user Interactivity Combines with Productivity, Performance, Standards Enhancements to Reinforce Dominance of Company's BPMS." - "Intalio, Inc., the business process management company, today announced immediate availability of Intalio|n³ 2.0, the company's trailblazing Business Process Management System (BPMS). The move reinforces Intalio's leadership position in BPM arena by adding support for complex workflow interactions with end-users while enhancing Intalio|n³ 2.0 support for industry standards, amplifying its enterprise-class performance, and boosting user productivity. 'Intalio|n³ 2.0 benefits from more than three years of research and development as well as experience acquired through successful deployments by early adopters,' said Ismael Ghalimi, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Intalio. 'The groundbreaking architecture of Intalio|n³ 2.0 takes BPM to the next level as the only BPMS that can support any block-structured process modeling languages such as BPML and BPEL4WS. Perhaps more significant, Intalio|n³ 2.0 leverages organizations' existing IT assets and infrastructure, including application servers, message brokers, packaged applications, heritage systems and Web Services.' With Intalio|n³ 2.0, organizations now have the power to completely and seamlessly manage the entire life cycle of their business processes, from design to execution to optimization. Highlighting Intalio|n³ 2.0 is the introduction of a new platform component, Intalio|n³ Director, as well as standards support, enterprise-readiness, and productivity enhancements to established Intalio|n³ Server and Intalio|n³ Designer components. Intalio|n³ Director allows employees, customers, and partners to seamlessly direct the execution of business processes and perform business activity monitoring tasks through any existing workforce software, including groupware systems, workflow engines, and enterprise information portals. Key to Intalio|n³ Director is XPage, a new XML-based language developed by Intalio, for creating highly-interactive user interface components. XPage replaces the use of up to seven different languages that are required today for the development of interactive Web-based user interfaces (JSP, Java, JavaScript, XML, XSLT, HTML, CSS). In combination with BPML, XPage can reduce the development cost of end-to-end processes by up to 75 percent. Intalio|n³ Director's tight integration with Intalio|n³ Designer lets users visually bind UIs with processes thereby eliminating the need to manually code. Intalio|n³ Director also features an easily customizable BPML-based workflow engine for role-based task management and LDAP integration for user management. Intalio|n³ Director runs on any application server with a servlet engine..." [December 30, 2002] "Pattern Based Analysis of BPML (and WSCI)." By Wil M.P. van der Aalst, Marlon Dumas, Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede, and Petia Wohed. QUT Technical Report,FIT-TR-2002-05. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 2002. 27 pages (with 24 references). "Web services composition is an emerging paradigm for enabling application integration within and across organizational boundaries. A landscape of languages and techniques for web services composition has emerged and is continuously being enriched with new proposals from different vendors and coalitions. However, little or no effort has been dedicated to systematically evaluating the capabilities and limitations of these languages and techniques. The work reported in this paper is a step in this direction. It presents an in-depth analysis of the Business Process modeling Language (BPML). The framework used for this analysis is based on a collection of workflow and communication patterns. In addition to BPML, the framework is also applied to the Web Services Choreography Interface (WSCI). WSCI and BPML have several routing constructs in common but aim at different levels of the web services stack... When comparing BPEL4WS, XLANG, WSFL, BPML and WSCI to contemporary workflow systems on the basis of the patterns discussed in this paper, they are remarkably strong. Note that only few workflow management systems support Cancel Activity, Cancel Case, Implicit Termination, and Deferred Choice. In addition, workflow management systems typically do not directly support message sending. The trade-off between block-structured languages and graph-based languages is shown [only partly reflected] by Table 6. XLANG, BPML, and WSCI are block-structured languages. WSFL is graph-based. BPEL4WS is a hybrid language in the sense that it combines features from both the block-structured language XLANG and the graph-based language WSFL. Nearly all workflow languages are graph-based and emphasize the need of end-users to understand and communicate process models. Therefore, it is remarkable that of the five languages evaluated in Table 6, only WSFL is graph based... All the five languages are textual (XML-based) without any graphical representation. This seems to indicate that communication of the models is not considered as a requirement. In this context, we refer to the BPMI initiative toward a Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). BPMN is intended as a graphical language that can be mapped onto languages such as BPML and BPEL4WS. Although not reflected by Table 6, the expressiveness of block-structured languages is limited to 'well-structured' processes where there is a one-to-one correspondence between splits and joins. This forces the designer using a language like BPML to introduce entities of type signal, raise, and synch which appear to be workarounds to emulate a graph-based language..." See also "Don't Go With The Flow: Web Services Composition Standards Exposed. Web Services - Been There Done That?" in IEEE Intelligent Systems Jan/Feb 2003. [cache] [December 07, 2002] "Multi-Party Electronic Business Transactions." By Bob Haugen (Logistical Software LLC, ebXML and UN/CEFACT TMG Business Process Work Group) and Tony Fletcher (Choreology Ltd, OASIS Business Transaction Protocol Committee and UN/CEFACT TMG, Business Process and Architecture Work Groups). Version 1.1. 7-December-2002. "We present a business scenario, the Drop-Dead Order, that is best handled as a multi-party electronic business transaction. We present models of such transactions using the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology (UMM) and the OASIS Business Transaction Protocol (BTP). We claim that the two models are sufficiently equivalent that the same runtime software could execute either. We recommend that BTP be considered as an underpinning implementation technology for UMM, thus harmonizing two specifications that have been considered incompatible. We suggest that further efforts be made to harmonize the other major proposals for electronic business processes so as to converge from a confusion of incompatibility to one global standard, or at least good interoperability. Along the way, we dip into several other important topics, such as the benefits of transactional behavior, the meaning and scope of transaction contracts, the use of coordinators and commitments to structure complex business collaborations, and the distinction between business coordination and transaction completion..." [November 13, 2002] BPMI.org Publishes BPML 1.0 and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Working Draft. The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) has announced the release of the final draft for the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML 1.0) and the first public working draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The two business process management (BPM) specifications are made publicly available under royalty-free terms, and are represented as offering "the first business process modeling language to provide a graphical notation that can be used by business analysts for the modeling of executable and manageable business processes." The Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) specification "provides an abstract model for expressing business processes and supporting entities. BPML defines a formal model for expressing abstract and executable processes that address all aspects of enterprise business processes, including activities of varying complexity, transactions and their compensation, data management, concurrency, exception handling and operational semantics." The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) specification "provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. The BPMN specification also provides a mapping between the graphics of the notation to underlying the constructs of execution languages, such as BPEL4WS and BPML." [September 28, 2002] "A Comparison of XPDL, BPML, and BPEL4WS." By Robert Shapiro (President and Chief Technology Officer, Cape Visions). Published by ebPML.org. 'Rough Draft' version 1.4, August 27, 2002. 17 pages. "The Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) is representative of a new family of process definition languages intended for expressing abstract and executable processes that address all aspects of enterprise business processes, including in particular those areas important for webbased services. Microsoft's XLANG is another member of this family, as is IBM's Web Services Flow Language (WSFL). These latter two have now been combined in BPEL4WS. In this paper we focus on a comparison of BPML with XPDL, the WfMC proposed standard for an XML-based process definition interchange language. Comments in red have been added to extend the comparison to BPEL4WS, hereafter abbreviated to BPEL... Our primary objective is to clarify the differences between the BPML and XPDL (and BPEL) paradigms. We are interested in exposing what can be done with one language and cannot be done, or done only with difficulty in the other. When simple extensions are possible, we propose them. We are also concerned about the work being done by the three standards organizations: WfMC, OMG, and BPMI..." Note: "ebPML.org promotes a new vision for IT infrastructures shared by many and based on the convergence of several technologies and standards, including but not limited to: Business Process Management Systems, ebXML, Web services, and Content standards such as OAGIS the standard of the open application group, or RosettaNet." [source .DOC 2002-09-28, fetch from www.ebpml.org/ for update] [September 18, 2002] "Model Programs. Business Process Modeling Tools Help Put the Enterprise In Perspective." By Kevin Jonah. In Government Computer News Volume 21, Number 27 (September 09, 2002), pages 52-54. "The main benefits to government of BPM tools are clear. They help agencies make better spending decisions and comply with regulations, and provide a road map for cross-agency collaboration. But the corresponding arrival of BPM religion in the government and a new wave of application technologies has offered another benefit: the opportunity to reuse all that modeling information to devise new automated processes, which reduces software development costs and speeds the response of agencies to e-government requirements... IDEF [a key set of standards for most government data and process modeling] was created in the 1970s by the Air Force's Program for Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing. It was extended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with support from the Defense Department's Office of Corporate Information Management and issued as a Federal Information Processing Standard... IDEF now consists of 16 specifications for various types of information modeling. The specification most relevant to business process modeling is the IDEF3 Process Description Capture Method. IDEF3 is a format for capturing information about the relationship between events -- the steps in a process -- and the situations, or states that occur within the process... new standards for describing the underlying information in models have been developed, making it possible to more easily move model data from one type of analysis tool to another, and to quickly generate automated processes with models. The most important of these new modeling languages are the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)... While UML doesn't correspond directly to IDEF3, some modeling tools can bridge the gap. Popkin Software's System Architect, for example, can move models from IDEF3 to UML use cases and back. BPML is a different animal from UML and IDEF3. It is a dialect of XML designed for the world of asynchronous distributed systems -- in other words, Web services. The first draft of BPML was made public on March 8 last year. While IDEF3 and UML are used to capture information about processes, BPML is intended to actually drive automated processes, according to the Business Process Modeling Initiative, a consortium of companies that is developing BPML and a related standard, the Business Process Query Language. BPML connects automated processes across applications through Web services and application messaging standards such as the Simple Object Access Protocol, Electronic Business XML, RosettaNet and Microsoft BizTalk. It incorporates data flow, event flow and control of the process, along with providing for business rules, transaction requirements and security roles within a process. While many companies have announced that they will support BPML, few have implemented it. BPML is still something of a work in progress. But major infrastructure companies like IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have thrown their support behind BPML. Middleware and application vendors, and even major corporate customers like General Electric and insurer Swiss Re, also are on board, so BPML eventually will have a major impact... Microsoft, BEA Systems Inc. and IBM recently announced the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS), which is closely related to BPML. Popkin said he sees the two converging..." [September 05, 2002] "BPML | BPEL4WS: A Convergence Path toward a Standard BPM Stack." BPMI.org Position Paper. August 15, 2002. ['The release by BEA, IBM, and Microsoft of BPEL4WS, a new language for the modeling of executable business processes, adds another candidate specification to the emerging standard BPM stack. The future directions announced for BPEL4WS follow the footsteps of BPML identifying possible paths of convergence for the BPM industry.'] "Prior to this BPEL4WS release, the emerging BPM industry has been considering multiple alternative paths for the modeling of executable business processes. Microsoft pioneered the adoption of the Pi-Calculus model with XLANG, IBM rejuvenated the use of Petri Nets with WSFL, and BPMI.org unified the two approaches with BPML 1.0. Alongside such parallel efforts, other organizations advocated radically different approaches for business process modeling, such as ebXML BPSS developed by OASIS... BPML and BPEL4WS share similar roots in Web Services (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI), take advantage of the same XML technologies (XPath, XSDL), and are designed to leverage other specifications (WS-Security, WS-Transactions). Beyond these areas of commonality, BPML supports the modeling of real-world business processes through its unique support for advanced semantics such as nested processes and complex compensated transactions, capabilities BPEL4WS has yet to address. The authors of the BPEL4WS specification acknowledge such limitations in Section 13 of their recent draft, thus identifying a clear path of convergence toward a model similar to BPML's. Now that the BPM industry has started to consolidate on a common vision for Business Process Management, BPMI.org's original mission is more critical than ever. The Initiative's mission is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, control, and optimization. In that respect, BPMI.org is not only interested in the execution side of business processes -- currently covered by specifications such as BPML and BPEL4WS -- but also their design by business analysts through the development of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), as well as their deployment, control, and optimization, through the development of the Business Process Query Language (BPQL). With such developments, BPMI.org remains the first and only independent organization fully dedicated to the development of a royalty-free BPM stack... Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI), which was approved as a note by the W3C on August 8, 2002, is best described as a process interface definition language for business processes, is the largest common denominator to BPML and BPEL4WS. By offering 'out-of-the-box' interoperability across these two languages as well as ebXML BPSS and WfMC's XPDL, WSCI has greatly contributed to the consolidation of a standard BPM stack..." [cache] [September 05, 2002] "Popkin Software to Offer Integrated Support for Release 1.0 of Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). New Standard Offers Transactional and Collaborative Business Process Modeling." - Popkin Software, a leading developer of enterprise modeling tools, today announced full, integrated support for the first public draft 1.0 of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML 1.0) in its flagship enterprise modeling tool, System Architect. Created under the auspices of the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) within which Popkin is a leading author, the new BPML standard provides a formal model for modeling executable end-to-end business processes that address all aspects of enterprise business processes. The new BPML standard also offers support for XML Schema-based process definitions for streamlining communications among the heterogeneous systems and modeling tools used in Web services... Popkin's System Architect enterprise modeling suite will offer integrated support for the BPMI standard in a future release. This follows an announcement last August by Popkin, Casewise and Computer Sciences Corporation about a joint effort to produce and support a standard business process modeling notation (BPMN) under the umbrella of BPMI.org. The first draft release of BPML 1.0 includes early facets of the BPMN. The BPML 1.0 specification is available royalty free for download from BPMI.org's web site...." [June 26, 2002] BPMI.org Releases Business Process Modeling Language Working Draft Specification. The Business Process Management Initiative has anounced the publication of the Business Process Modeling Language specification (BPML 1.0) as a first public working draft. The BPML specification "provides an abstract model and XML syntax for expressing business processes and supporting entities. It governs transactions and their compensation, data management, concurrency, exception handling, and operational semantics. BPML itself does not define any application semantics such as particular processes or application of processes in a specific domain; rather it defines an abstract model and grammar for expressing generic processes. This allows BPML to be used for a variety of purposes that include, but are not limited to, the definition of enterprise business processes, the definition of complex Web services, and the definition of multi-party collaborations. By leveraging the Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) specification developed by BEA Systems, Intalio, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems, BPML 1.0 enables the modeling of end-to-end processes that can be translated into collections of private implementations executed as BPML processes and public interfaces defined using WSCI. Together, they provide an end-to-end view that depicts the role of each individual business process in the overall choreography, and the business activities performed by each role. BPML 1.0 and WSCI 1.0 appropriately share the same underlying process execution model, as well as similar syntaxes." [May 06, 2002] "Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) Announce Historic First Joint Standards Meeting." - "The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) today announced that both groups have agreed to a first-ever formal joint meeting to be held in London Wednesday June 26, 2002. Joint work will spotlight development of standards for Workflow and Business Process Management, with collaboration focusing on the standards revolving around Wf-XML, BPML and XPDL. A definition of the business process being managed is key to workflow management technology. Accordingly, some experts feel that workflow technology is a superset of business process definition technology. Conversely others believe that, because business process management goes beyond workflow, workflow is a subset of business process management. The WfMC and the BPMI have acknowledged, at a minimum, a substantial overlap in process definition exists. Informal discussions have recognized that both organizations would benefit from common techniques for defining the business processes. These informal discussions have led to this forthcoming historic formal meeting... The joint meeting is open to members of either organization. The WfMC and BPMI organizations will share in any intellectual property resulting from this joint initiative and their contributions will recognized appropriately through branding..." [June 13, 2002] Web Service Choreography Interface Released by BEA Systems, Intalio, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems. A new review draft Web Service Choreography Interface 1.0 specification "proposes a language standard that can be used in conjunction with existing Web-service protocols to provide a description of the observable behavior of Web services. The Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) is an XML-based interface description language that describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web Service participating in choreographed interactions with other services. WSCI describes the dynamic interface of the Web Service participating in a given message exchange by means of reusing the operations defined for a static interface. WSCI works in conjunction with the Web Service Description Language (WSDL), the basis for the W3C Web Services Description Working Group; it can, also, work with another service definition language that exhibits the same characteristics as WSDL. WSCI describes the observable behavior of a Web Service. This is expressed in terms of temporal and logical dependencies among the exchanged messages, featuring sequencing rules, correlation, exception handling, and transactions. WSCI also describes the collective message exchange among interacting Web Services, thus providing a global, message-oriented view of the interactions." [August 28, 2001] "Popkin, Casewise And Computer Sciences Corporation to Develop Business Process Modeling Notation With Support From BPMI.Org." - "The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org), Popkin, Casewise, and Computer Sciences Corporation have announced the formation of a Working Group to develop a standard notation for business process modeling. The notation, named Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), will be developed within the Business Process Management Initiative and will support the semantics of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). This initiative is a direct result of a unique collaboration between market leaders of the modeling industry: Popkin Software and Systems Inc. and Casewise, and leading systems integrator, Computer Sciences Corporation. The three companies recognized that, in the modern commercial world of enterprise-wide and inter-company collaboration, the effective communication of business process information is vital. There is currently no commonly accepted standard for business process notation. This is a limiting factor in the ability for companies to describe their processes to each other and in the skill of the business audience to comprehend a set of business processes. A decade ago, CSC led the way in breaking down the inefficiencies within companies with its innovations in business process reengineering. Now firms face relentless pressure to perform better, faster, cheaper, and with super pleasing results. To achieve this, firms must only do what they do extremely well - all else must be performed by partners. However, working with partners requires breaking down the inefficiencies between companies and coping with frequent change across the entire end-to-end value chain. In this new world of collaborative commerce and collaborative sourcing a standard business process is simply not adequate. Today, organizational change occurs through Process Management. All three companies agreed on a joint effort to produce and support a standard business process modeling notation, and agreed that BPMI would be the ideal vehicle for its growth and standardization... Popkin, Casewise and CSC aim to work closely together to develop the first draft of BPMN. CSC's widely used Catalystsm methodology previously influenced the development of standard modeling notations and methods implemented by Popkin and Casewise. The development of BPMN, based on BPML semantics, is an extension of that relationship and collaboration..." [March 08, 2001] "Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)." "Proposed Draft" [0.4] specification from BPMI.org. Draft 0.4, 3/8/2001. 155 pages. By Assaf Arkin, edited by Ashish Agrawal (Intalio,Inc.). Available 2001-03-08 from BPMI.org BPMI.org web site. Organization of the version 0.4 BPML specification: Section 2 'Concepts' introduces the reader to the key concepts underlying BPML. "BPML defines a business process as an interaction between participants and the execution of activities according to a defined set of rules in order to achieve a common goal." Section 3 'BPML by example' introduces BPML through an example that models trouble ticket management processes between a customer and a service provider. Section 4 'BPML Conventions' covers the terminology and schema conventions used in BPML. Section 5 'Process Definition' specifies how processes are defined in BPML, including message, participant, and activity definitions. Section 6 'Process Data' specifies the manner in which instance data is managed within the context of a process. Section 7 'Transactions and Faults' specifies the transaction models and fault handling behaviors in BPML processes. Section 8 'BPML Elements' provides a reference of the BPML elements as defined in the BPML XML schema. [cache] BPML XML Schema, 2001-03-08. Namespace: xmlns:bpml="http://www.bpmi.org/BPML. [cache] [March 08, 2001] "Industry Leaders Publish Standard for Business Process Management. Release of BPML Specification Paves Way for Implementations." - "Marking a breakthrough development in the evolution of business process management, the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) announced at their member meeting today the public release of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML) specification. BPML is a meta-language for the modeling of business processes, just as XML is a meta-language for the modeling of business data. BPML provides an abstracted execution model for collaborative & transactional business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. By covering the multiple dimensions of business process management in the open enterprise, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, ebXML, and BizTalk. BPML empowers all participants involved in the process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization to manage business activities in a process-oriented fashion, while preserving the integrity of end-to-end business processes all over their lifecycle. BPML enables the collaboration of process participants in a reliable, scalable, and secure way, by supporting dynamic process topologies that allow the boundary between processes and participants to be determined on-the-fly by long-term and real-time business goals, while retaining synchronized public interfaces associated with trading partner agreements. Several BPMI.org members, ranging from software vendors to consulting firms, have expressed plans to incorporate BPML into their products and services. BPMI.org foresees BPML implementations in such enterprise software as process design tools, process repositories, process servers, process administration tools, process optimization tools, and many process-specific applications. Today's public release comes after several revisions and six months of collaboration between members of BPMI.org." [cache] [March 28, 2001] "No More Speaking In Code." By L. Scott Tillett. In InternetWeek (March 12, 2001). "An IT industry group has released specifications aimed at allowing business process-specific code in applications to be removed, shared and analyzed in much the same way data can be isolated from application logic. The language, called Business Process Modeling Language, is intended to let enterprises easily share business process details with suppliers and partners, diminishing the need to customize code when two businesses use the Internet for core processes such as monitoring inventory or manufacturing a product. If it's widely embraced, the standard would be used by software makers to break out business process code from their apps. The industry group behind the BPML specification calls itself the Business Process Management Initiative and includes more than 75 heavyweights including Computer Sciences Corp., Intalio, Nortel Networks, Sybase, Sun Microsystems, Blaze Software and Hewlett-Packard. Business Process Management Initiative members envision a day when business processes, like data, can reside in their own management systems -- where they can be analyzed to determine the best way of conducting business, or from which they might be passed along to business partners in a common language describing how a particular process should be performed. BPML, an 'object-oriented description of a process,' according to BPMI members, can be expressed in XML, making it easy for businesses to pass business-process specifications back and forth. 'BPML is a language for modeling processes both within and between businesses,' said Howard Smith, chief technology officer for BPMI member CSC." [September 28, 2000] "BPMI.org Gets Underway at Kick-Off Meeting. Members of Business Process Management Initiative Take Action." - "BPMI.org, the Business Process Management Initiative, announced the first meeting of the new organization was held on Thursday, Sept. 21 in Burlingame, Calif. Over 40 high tech professionals from around the world participated in the day-long session to meet fellow members, establish a foundation for the initiative, and discuss plans moving forward. Among the many issues discussed was the working draft of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is an XML Schema that provides a standard way to model mission-critical business processes. By covering the multiple dimensions of business process modeling in the open enterprise, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, ebXML, and WSDL. An initial working draft of BPML was submitted to members on Aug. 15, 2000. 'The meeting has revealed a wide consensus from vendors, integrators, and customers on the needs and approaches for the Business Process Modeling Language,' said Jean-Jacques Dubray, chief architect at eXcelon Corporation. 'The first release of the BPML specification will establish a clear interface with business collaboration protocols, a complete model for process transactions across company boundaries, and a well defined link between the process flow and the data flow.' 'Last week's meeting was a fantastic beginning for BPMI.org,' noted Ismael Ghalimi, CEO of Intalio. 'It became instantly clear that the members are focused on achieving meaningful, lasting results that will benefit everyone involved in business process management.' Founded on Aug. 7, 2000, BPMI.org represents a host of companies formed to define specifications for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The XML-based standards generated from this initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, ebXML, and WSDL, and new service registration and discovery initiatives such as UDDI. Membership to the Business Process Management Initiative is open to any company, organization, or individual.' [August 08, 2000] "Intalio Leads XML Initiative for Business Process
Management. The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) Will Standardize Management of Mission-Critical Business Processes That Span Multiple Applications, Corporate Departments, and Business Partners." - "Intalio, the Business Process Management Company, with Aventail, Black Pearl, Blaze Software, Bowstreet, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Computer Sciences Corporation, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Entricom, Ontology.Org, S1 Corporation, Versata, VerticalNet, Verve, and XMLFund announced today that they will form a group to define standards for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The XML-based standards generated from the initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP. The first deliverable of the Business Process Management Initiative will be the specification of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is an XML Schema that provides a standard way to model mission-critical business processes. .." [cache] [September 08, 2000] "eXcelon Joins BPMI.org to Aid in the Development of New Business Process Integration Standard. New XML Standard Will Speed the Adoption of B2B Partner Networks." - "eXcelon Corporation, a leading provider of XML-based business-to-business (B2B) infrastructure solutions, today announced that it has joined the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org), a new organization that will define standards that enable the integration of cross-company business processes over the Internet. 'B2B commerce is about extending your business processes outside your organization, to be shared with all of you partners, suppliers and customers,' said Jean-Jacques Dubray, chief architect at eXcelon Corp. 'For the past year, eXcelon has been developing an XML-based language for defining and executing business processes as part of our B2B Integration Server. We look forward to being able to share what we have learned to further advance B2B commerce.' 'BPMI.org will help the Global 2000 further embrace the opportunities offered by e-Business,' said Ismael Ghalimi, CEO of Intalio, one of BPMI.org's founding members. 'By delivering a standard language for the modeling of business processes that will be deployed on forthcoming Business Process Management Systems, BPMI.org will bring the industry a step closer to the process-managed enterprise.' The first deliverable of the Business Process Management Initiative will be the specification of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is an XML Schema that provides a standard way to model business processes. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is the new Internet standard for marking up data to facilitate exchanges of information between businesses, independently of applications and platforms. By covering many dimensions of business process modeling that are specific to processes deployed internally to the enterprise, including business rules, security roles, distributed transactions, compensating transactions, and exception handling, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk and ebXML. The Business Process Modeling Language will enable the enterprise to model, deploy, and manage business processes such as order management, customer care, demand planning, product development, and strategic sourcing. This will allow the IT infrastructure to provide greater adaptability to the business of the enterprise and easier manageability of constantly evolving business processes, eventually leading to higher levels of profitability. The XML-based standards generated from BPMI.org will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP." [September 07, 2000] "HP, Mercator, Sterling Commerce, Seven Others Join BPMI.org as Initiative Gains Momentum." - "Intalio, the Business Process Management Company, announced today the addition of 10 new members to the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org). Attunity, bTrade.com, BusinessThreads, CASEwise, Enterworks, eXcelon, Hewlett-Packard, Mercator, Sterling Commerce, and Sunguard Business Integration are the newest in a growing list of companies to join BPMI.org, which was officially founded back on August 7. Together, these firms will join the 16 initial members in defining standards for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The XML-based standards generated from this initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP. The first deliverable of the Business Process Management Initiative will be the specification of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). On August 15 [2000], Intalio delivered to members a working draft of BPML as an initial platform for discussion. BPML is an XML Schema that provides a standard way to model mission-critical business processes. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is the new Internet standard for marking up data to facilitate exchanges of information between businesses, independently of applications and platforms. By covering many dimensions of business process modeling that are specific to processes deployed internally to the enterprise, including business rules, security roles, distributed transactions, compensating transactions, and exception handling, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML. The Business Process Modeling Language will enable the enterprise to model, deploy, and manage business processes such as order management, customer care, demand planning, product development, and strategic sourcing. This will allow the IT infrastructure to provide greater adaptability to the business of the enterprise and easier manageability of constantly evolving business processes, eventually leading to higher levels of profitability. Membership to the Business Process Management Initiative is open to any company, organization, or individual." [August 08, 2000] "Verve, Inc. Co-Founds XML Initiative for Business Process Management. Standards Effort Will Turn Business Processes Into Manageable Business Assets." - "Verve, Inc. announced today that it has co-founded the Business Process Management Initiative (BMPI.org) in conjunction with Aventail, Black Pearl, Blaze Software, Bowstreet, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Computer Sciences Corporation, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Entricom, Intalio, Ontology.Org, S1 Corporation, Versata, VerticalNet, and XMLFund. The BPMI will define standards for the management of mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The XML-based standards generated from the initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP. [August 08, 2000] "Entricom Joins Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI). Entricom to assist in the development of XML-based standard for the management of mission-critical business processes." - "Entricom, developer of the first XML-based Operation Support System (OSS) for next-generation Communication Service Providers, today announced they would be an active participant in the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org). BPMI intends to define standards for managing mission-critical business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners. The standards generated from the initiative will support and complement existing business-to-business collaboration protocols such as RosettaNet, BizTalk, and ebXML, as well as technology integration standards including J2EE and SOAP. The first deliverable of BPMI will be the specification of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). BPML is an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Schema that provides a standard way to model mission-critical business processes. XML is the new Internet standard for marking up data to facilitate exchanges of information between businesses, independently of applications and platforms. By covering many dimensions of business process modeling that are specific to processes deployed internally to the enterprise, including business rules, security roles, distributed transactions, compensating transactions, and exception handling, BPML will bridge the gap between legacy IT infrastructures and emerging business-to-business collaboration protocols. Entricom has developed the first XML-based Operations Support System (OSS) that enables business process automation and end-to-end integration for next-generation Communication Service Providers (CSPs). Entricom has built a flexible, scalable, and open XML framework and suite of software applications that answer next-generation CSPs need for fast service launch, flow-through provisioning, secure access, and agile response to market growth. Entricom's XML framework supports the integration of Entricom's software applications and other best-in-class OSS applications including those offered by companies such as Lucent, Nortel Networks, Architel, Cisco Systems, ADC Saville, Portal, Telecom Software, SCC, and Siebel Systems." Contact: Ryan Madden.
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