jBPM and Spring - Spring Enterprise Recipes: A Problem Solution Approach - page 408

Let's look at some of these standards in Table 11-1.

Table 11-1. some of the myriad, significant standards surrounding BPM

Standard Name Standards Group Description

WS-BPEL (BPEL) OASIS A language that, when deployed to a BPEL

container, describes the execution of a
process. It interfaces with the outside world
via the invocation of external web services.
This language describes the runtime
behavior of a process. It has several flaws, not
the least of which is the reliance on web
service technology and the lack of work-list
support.

WS-BPEL (BPEL 2.0) OASIS Largely an upgrade to its predecessor,

clarifying the behavior at runtime of
certain elements and adding more expressive
elements to the language.

WS-BPEL for People
(BPEL4People)

OASIS The main feature common to traditional

“workflow” systems is the ability to support
work lists for actors in a process. BPEL had
no such support as it didn't support human
tasks (that is, wait states for people). This
specification addresses that exact
shortcoming.

Business Process
Modeling Notation
(BPMN)

Originally BPMI, then
OMG, as the two
organizations merged

Provides a set of diagramming notations that
describe a business process. This notation is
akin to UML's activity diagram, though the
specification also describes how the
notations relate to runtime languages such as
BPEL. The notation is sometimes ambiguous,
however, and one of the formidable
challenges facing BPM vendors is creating a
drawing tool that can round-trip to BPEL and
back, providing seamless authoring.

XML Process Definition
Language

Workflow Management
Coalition (WfMC)

Describes the interchange of diagrams
between modeling tools, especially how
elements are displayed and the semantics of
those elements to the target notation.