Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 1 Java Workflow Tooling (JWT) Florian Lautenbacher University of Augsburg Germany - JWT project lead – Eclipse Summit Europe 2007

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 2 Possible outline – to be discussed JWT Introduction JWT place in the Business process development life cycle How JWT improves the development, creation, maintenance and interoperability of the process definitions Possible JWT Integrations with SOA platforms etc. JWT vision for the future.

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 3 JWT – A complete, flexible BPM platform To provide a comprehensive, flexible BPM platform That addresses and (hopefully) solves the BPM Babel Tower issue, that has plagued the BPM field And allows for Distribution-like releases with specific extensions targeting specific platforms or problematics JWT for SOA To provide a complete and usable BPM solution Business View, Technical View Deployment View, Monitoring View Tooling and integration with runtimes What does JWT consist in Eclipse-based Generic plugins Extensibility APIs Extensions allowing support of specific business representations, BP language formats, BP engines, service platforms…

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 4 JWT – The BPM Babel Tower issue - 1 In BPM, there are Many representation views (ex.BPMN, BPDM) Many process languages and technical formats (ex. XPDL, BPMN and extensions) Even more engine implementations, each with different feature sets Ex. Open source engines like jBoss jBPM, Objectweb / Bull Bonita & Orchestra, Apache ODE… Origins of the BPM Babel Tower issue Vendors first and foremost develop and sellengines Only then do they develop tooling And in order to showcase their engines specific features, their tooling is usually bound to their engine Ex. engine specific implementation hints etc.

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 5 JWT – The BPM Babel Tower issue - 2 The problem Many tools for many languages and engines, but none of them compatible (at the very least none are made to be used that way) What the user(s) would like Being able to use the best technology and the best tool for each one of his needs Ex. Let BPMN be used by a business analyst to design a first high, business-level process description, using a full blown BPMN editor, and then help the developer go from there to an XPDL implementation Let XPDL be used for workflow needs, BPEL for orchestration needs, with minimal hindrance in the must have knowledge and engine integration

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 6 JWT – Addressing The BPM Babel Tower issue Solution 1 : an extensible metamodel JWTs core metamodel is simple and forms a good basis for such an extensible metamodel This solution allows for a tightly integrated set of features, on the condition they are close enough to JWTs in paradigm and technology Solution 2 : the pivotal metamodel A metamodel for which exists a bijective transformation with the JWT core metamodel is granted the full set of features JWT provides This solution allows a unified approach to BPM tooling and especially design, since any BP-related language can to some point be integrated this way A complementary alternative : the Process Virtual Machine (PVM)

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 7 JWT – Achieving a unified approach to BPM design Under development : Scheduled for Christmas release Two way BPMN to JWT transformation Ongoing BPMN – JWT mapping study and prototyping ; by Obeo JWT to XPDL transformation Based on existing JWT – XPDL mapping study by Bull ; by Open Wide JWT to BPEL transformation Targets jBoss jBPM BPEL runtime ; by Augsburg University TODO Florian ? Planned work : Mapping with STP Intermediate Metamodel (STP-IM) Mapping with other metamodels PVM interoperability

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 8 JWT for SOA - Benefits of SOA for BPM SOA acts as a protective shell over the entreprise information system, ensuring Business Process they wont be impacted by unmanaged evolutions of the information system Ex. Information system application updates SOA platforms provide services that are natural implementation candidates for JWT Action execution Therefore, integrating JWT with SOA platforms at devtime and runtime definitely makes sense ! Looking at BPM the SOA way BPM engines may be seen as exposing services BPM engine administration service, Process start service, Process Activity Lifecycle service… BPM tooling may be integrated to SOA platforms development, deployment or management tooling

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v1.0 9 JWT for SOA – Targeting an SOA platform Under development Scheduled for Christmas release Generic service registry API With a first simple implementation Generic service registry Browsing and Search UI Basic browsing UI Advanced semantic search UI Integrated within the JWT technical designer Allows to graphically create JWT Actions targeting a service that is known by the registry Planned work : Process registry SCA integration Working with the SCOrWare SCA compliant platform, by the SCOrWare public-funded project

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT purpose Provide build time and run-time tools to help develop processes Typical use cases will be : Graphically design a process Start/Stop a process/workflow engine Deploy a process definition in an engine Administrate/monitor engine in order to debug a deployed process No particular focus on a specific engine implementation or standard (even if standards will be promoted) : need for an independent process meta model definition No constrained graphic representation but BPMN will be targeted at first. Motivations are to be able to give to different user profiles different representation of the same workflow definition. E.g. : simplified view for business oriented users.

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT APIs and extension points JWT is divided in two related parts : Workflow Editor (WE) Graphical representation of process definition Export of process definitions to XML Import of valid XML process definition and its graphical representation Workflow engine Administration and Monitoring (WAM) Process Definition Management (Repository & Package) Process Execution Management (Instantiation, Monitoring…) Process Runtime Resources Mapping (Application & Users) Worklist Management & out of the box Desktop BPM features

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT WE – underlying principle domain specific model XML code for process engine simulation, preview business view technical view Domain expert IT-Expert MDSD lightMDSD/MDA TM Business Expert IT Expert IT System Code CIM PIM PSM Code Architecture etc. PM MT

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT WE – Screenshot (JWT WE packaged as an RCP application, available on

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT WE – extension points possibility to generate code from the workflow models (WSBPEL, XPDL, etc.) e.g. using the workflow generation framework at generate a documentation of the modelled processes create additional views (BPMN, ITIL, ISO 9000, etc.)...

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT WAM

Eclipse Foundation, Inc. | © 2007 by OpenWide / University of Augsburg and made available under the EPL v JWT – To be filled ToDos in SCOrWare, by Obeo, INT Evry, OpenWide? Timeline for releases? When will the first release of JWT WAM be online? JWT WE will be released on the Eclipse site in the first week of October Short video using the simulator (Preview desktop)? To be discussed on the mailing list 30 minutes time, means a maximum of 17 slides