Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Selecting a Business Process Language
Problem
You want to begin implementing your defined business process in an executable process mod-
eling language that supports visualization by analysts and architects.
Solution
In Java environments, choose between BPMN, BPEL, and jPDL. Or use them in tandem.
Discussion
There are many good ways to represent workflows. Let's take a quick look at how the most
popular business process languages relate to one another and so that you can determine which
is most appropriate for your environment.
BPMN
BPMN is a graphical language that is executable; see the sidebar
BPMN (Business Process
Management Notation)
.
Many BPMN tools are fairly high level, and come bundled within
product suites that define separate roles for developers and analysts. Typically, these design
tools (many of which are based on Eclipse or ship as Eclipse plug-ins) deploy a completed
business process into a proprietary format that runs on a given vendor's server software.
jPDL
Like BPEL, jPDL (Java Process Definition Language) was created to express long-running
processes. The chief difference between the two is that developers write BPEL processes us-
ing an XML grammar, and jPDL uses Java directly. The XML grammar is an advantage if
you want to perform some sort of transformation on process code itself or port your process
to another environment. It's a disadvantage, however, if you have limited resources because
it does force you to learn that grammar pretty well. For this reason, Java developers may find
jPDL more native and intuitive.
Because jPDL won't be covered in much depth in this topic, let's take a moment to get a feel
for it here. Following are a few of its important distinguishing characteristics:
Swimlanes
Swimlanes
jPDL supports the notion of swimlanes much as BPMN does. BPEL does not offer an ana-
logous way to organize partners into roles within a process.
