As Oracle announces its new Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) Suite 11g, the company also states that it is committed to the investments of Sun customers in business process management technology. Specifically, the BPM technology within the Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS or JCAPS) is promised to be protected and migrations will not be forced as Oracle moves toward transitioning to a converged product line over time.

In attempting to explain what the combination of Oracle and Sun means in relation to BPM, the following points were issued:

• Oracle will continue to support and maintain Sun SOA and BPM products for a long time
• Oracle will support collaboration between Sun JCAPS and Oracle SOA Suite through bridge technology
• Customers will benefit from expanded R&D investments, global reach and support, and a portfolio of products with broader and deeper functionality

Now, the latest addition to Oracle's BPM product line - Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g - is a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. InformationWeek's Doug Henschen writes that the Oracle BPM Suite 11g aims to consolidate and extend technologies obtained through the acquisitions of Collaxa, BEA Systems and BEA's acquisition of pure-play vendor Fuego. The result is described as a comprehensive and unified suite that can handle any style of process.

"All types of processes are supported within a single product, single process engine and single run-time environment," said David Shaffer, vice president of product management for Oracle Fusion Middleware Solutions, as quoted by Henschen. "Until now, people would choose completely different product if they're doing processes around documents versus processes around people versus processes around systems."

The new solution is characterized by Oracle as having the following new capabilities:

Unified process foundation which simplifies process development, deployment, monitoring and execution

New components include:

• Unified process engine: executes BPEL and BPMN 2.0 processes, human workflow and rules, and is integrated with Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Business Activity Monitoring and Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus.

• Oracle Universal Content Management: for document-centric processes.

• End-to-end management: unifies the management and monitoring of business processes to extend problem management beyond the process boundary.

User-centric design approach, simplifying the process management lifecycle with tools that address user role requirements and enable both IT and business process participants

Key components include:

• BPM Studio: for role-based modeling and design.

• Process Composer: for web-based process modeling and deployment.

• Process analysis and reporting: for business visibility, process status and operational reporting.

• A single “What-you-see-is-what-you-execute” process model: supports the entire BPM lifecycle and eliminates synchronization problems between process design, simulation, execution and monitoring.

Social BPM capabilities enable collaboration among users by incorporating social computing and Enterprise 2.0 technologies, including wikis and blogs

Key features include:

• Process Spaces: deliver customized team spaces for business and IT through all phases of the business process management lifecycle.

• Business Process Guides: provide a milestone-centered view of processes that simplifies understanding and communication of process flow.

• Unstructured Process Support: helps users address unanticipated process changes by dynamically adding and delegating to additional process participants.

More Information

Oracle BPM and Sun

Oracle and Sun's Combined SOA Strategy

Middleware Integration Strategy - Oracle Fusion Middleware with Sun middleware products

Oracle Business Process Management Suite

Oracle BPM Suite 11g Product Overview and List of Resources - video runs 2:25

Oracle Fusion Middleware [...read more...]

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