Bruce Silver Associates    Industry Trend Reports 

Independent Expertise in BPM June 2010

A F I R S T   L O O K   AT   O R A C L E   B P M  S U I T E   11 G  
BPM Without Barriers 
As the BPM market has matured, it’s time to declare the era of specialized “fit-for-purpose”
BPM Suites officially over. Not long ago buyers had to choose between one set of offerings
for human-centric processes and a different set for integration-centric processes. Some
offerings focused on business empowerment and others appealed to developers. Some
BPMSs were firmly layered on SOA while others ignored SOA completely.
Those days are gone. BPM buyers today don’t want to proliferate more BPMS islands
across the enterprise. They want it all – BPM without boundaries – a single BPMS platform
good for both human-centric and integration-centric processes, offering both business
empowerment and rich developer tools, model-driven but on a powerful SOA foundation.
And they want it to be based on open standards. Such things are expected in mainstream
technology.
A key enabler of these elevated buyer expectations is BPMN 2.0, the new process definition
language standard from OMG. BPMN is most familiar as a process diagramming notation
for business analysts and architects, but BPMN 2.0 provides in addition a standard
executable process design language underneath the diagram shapes and symbols. We’ve
been eagerly awaiting the first BPM Suite based on BPMN 2.0, and now it’s here: Oracle
BPM Suite 11g.
This report takes an early look at Oracle BPM Suite 11g, and shows that it indeed goes a
long way toward delivering BPM without barriers. Oracle BPM Suite, part of Oracle Fusion
Middleware, brings together business-driven design and robust human-centric BPM with all
the IT infrastructure capabilities you would expect from Oracle. Version 11g combines two
formerly alternative paths of BPM solution development – one based on BPMN and the
other on BPEL – in a powerful unified architecture (Figure 1) that looks like a game-changer
in the BPMS marketplace.

BPMS Watch www.brsilver.com 
Bruce Silver 
500 Bear Valley Road, Aptos CA 95003  USA 
Tel: +1 831.685.8803   Fax: +1 831.603.3424   E‐mail: bruce@brsilver.com 
Figure 1. Oracle BPM 11g architecture. Source: Oracle

BPMN 2.0 ‐ Setting the Bar High from the Outset 
Over the past few years, BPMN 1.x has achieved near-universal adoption as the standard for
business process modeling. In its simplest form the graphical notation looks like traditional
swimlane diagrams, and therein lies its attraction to business users. But BPMN goes well
beyond that with features critical to executable process design, such as:
 Precise semantics of all the shapes and symbols, defined in an explicit metamodel
 Support for a wide variety of events – signals that something happened – and
graphical modeling of the event handling, important for modeling exceptions
 Support for inter-process communication in the form of message and signal events,
linking process execution to communications with customers, service providers, and
other internal processes... all explicitly shown in the process diagram.
Many BPMSs have leveraged BPMN 1.x to encourage business-IT collaboration in
executable process design. Technical details required for execution on the process engine
can be defined underneath each shape in the diagram, but in the past each BPMS did it in its
own proprietary way. Business could collaborate with process designers throughout the
implementation cycle, but the design details were proprietary to each BPMS. In BPMN 2.0,
however, that limitation is gone. The technical detail needed for execution is part of the
standard, making BPMN 2.0 effectively a new process execution language. It combines the
advantages of a standard process runtime with the business-empowerment inherent in a
standardized modeling notation. Oracle BPM Suite 11g is the first BPMS based on
executable BPMN 2.0.
Direct execution of graphical process models has sometimes been called WYSIWYE: what
you see is what you execute. In other words, the process diagram – what you see on paper –
is actually what is executed on the process engine. Unlike some other tools, where BPMN
models must be mapped to BPEL for execution, WYSIWYE means no roundtripping

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  2 
problems or business-unfriendly constraints on the BPMN models. With WYSIWYE the
process model becomes more than just business requirements for the developer. What you
see is actually what you execute. Specialized human-centric BPMSs have had WYSIWYE
for a while, but using proprietary runtimes without a strong SOA foundation. Oracle BPM
Suite 11g provides WYSIWYE using the new BPM standard on top of a world-class SOA
platform.
Oracle not only is first out of the gate with BPMN 2.0 support, but sets the competitive bar
extremely high for a long time to come. Two of BPMN’s most powerful features – event
handling and inter-process communications – are routinely ignored by other BPMSs today.
If supported at all, these behaviors usually are hidden in developer-written scripts rather than
visible to process analysts in BPMN. Thus, when it comes to things like exception handling,
many BPMN 1.x offerings are not really WYSIWYE. Oracle BPM 11g, however, makes
both exception handling and inter-process communications – as they are actually executed –
visible in the BPMN diagram.
Oracle supports all three of the most important BPMN event types – Message (point-to-point
inter-process communications), Error (propagation of exceptions from child to parent
process levels), and Timer (deadline-triggered behavior) – plus Signal (general purpose
publish-subscribe integration). When drawn on the boundary of an activity, these events
signify that if the event trigger occurs while the activity is running, the process will initiate
the exception flow drawn out of the boundary event. (That activity could be either a simple
task or an entire subprocess.) If the activity completes without the event trigger, then the
exception flow is ignored. Such boundary events can be used, for example, to describe what
happens when the customer changes an order in flight, or when an activity takes too long, or
when a service returns an exception (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Oracle supports all the important BPMN event types for exception handling. Source:
Oracle
Oracle BPM Suite 11g supports both interrupting boundary events, meaning the trigger
aborts the original activity, and non-interrupting, meaning the exception flow runs in
parallel to the ongoing activity. Oracle also supports a new BPMN construct called an event
subprocess, which is like a boundary event except that the event handler runs inside the
context of the original activity.
Underneath each of the diagram shapes, BPMN 2.0 defines the technical details needed for
automated execution, making it effectively a process execution language similar to BPEL.
Oracle BPM Suite 11g continues to support BPEL, and in fact it can run both BPEL and
BPMN 2.0 processes simultaneously. Many of BPEL’s advantages as a standard runtime
apply to BPMN 2.0 also, such as portability to third party engines, ultimately lowering cost
and business risk.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  3 
While BPEL is great for composing automated services, BPMN 2.0 is better for BPM, in
several respects. It does not constrain process models to a rigid block structure that is
confusing to business people. Also, execution is layered directly on the diagramming
notation that is already widely adopted by business analysts and architects. In the future, we
should expect to see BPEL used more for orchestrating automated services in the SOA layer,
and BPMN 2.0 used more for end-to-end process modeling in the BPM layer. Oracle BPM
Suite 11g solutions will include both BPMN and BPEL components running simultaneously
and communicating with each other via messages.

Business‐Empowered Implementation 
While human-centric BPM pureplay vendors have long emphasized business empowerment
through BPMN, they have lacked a strong SOA foundation. Now Oracle brings business-
empowered implementation to SOA-based BPM. The key to business empowerment is
WYSIWYE, discussed earlier. The same process model used for analysis is used for
execution. The model created by business is not just a requirements document, but part of
the implementation itself. This strongly encourages iterative development with business and
IT working in close collaboration throughout the implementation cycle. While many SOA-
based BPM Suites have used BPMN for business-level process modeling, those models are
usually mapped to a different process language, BPEL, for execution. That’s not
WYSIWYE, and it limits business-IT collaboration in the process implementation. But
because it supports BPMN for both modeling and execution, Oracle BPM Suite 11g means
you don’t have to give up WYSIWYE to put BPM on a robust SOA foundation.
Oracle has loaded BPM Suite 11g with features supporting business-IT collaboration
throughout the project lifecycle. Business users can create BPMN process models in the
browser-based Process Composer, leveraging a pre-populated catalog of roles, services, and
similar process components as a starting point for implementation design. Documentation
fields in Process Composer can capture use-case details. Process analysts use Process
Composer and the JDeveloper-based BPM Studio to refine process models with
implementation details, define business indicators to hold BAM data, and simulate process
designs to optimize business performance. Process developers use Studio’s zero-code
tooling to create more technical components, such as automated services, adapters, and
mediation flows.
All design components are exposed for reuse through Oracle’s Metadata Store (MDS). In
BPM Studio, each BPM project includes a business catalog, a reusable container of shared
process-related artifacts such as services, business objects, events, and exceptions. When
published as a BPM project template, artifacts in the business catalog can be reassembled by
process analysts using Process Composer. The result is a BPM platform that supports both
top-down and bottom-up implementation styles, with agile business-IT collaboration
throughout (Figure 3).

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  4 
 Developer Role
Analyst Role

BAM Dashboards

Rules Editor
Forms Editor

Security Policies
BPMN Editor, also
Org charts, Simulation,
Business Indicators

Task Editor
Events Adapters Editor

Metadata Services
BPM Projects Repository (MDS)

Figure 3. Business-IT collaboration in Oracle BPM Suite 11g. Source: Oracle

BPM Studio 
Oracle BPM Studio, the design environment, runs in the Oracle JDeveloper IDE. In addition
to a BPMN 2.0 process editor (Figure 4), BPM Studio provides editors for process data,
organizational roles, human tasks (including assignment and user interface), business rules,
business activity monitoring, and all other components of a complete BPM solution.
Leveraging JDeveloper Roles, business process developers and process analysts see different
sets of editors in BPM Studio.

Figure 4. BPMN 2.0-based Process Editor in BPM Studio. Source: Oracle

BPM Studio also supports simulation analysis of process models, allowing projection of
expected cycle time, throughput, and cost based on estimated parameters. Oracle’s
simulation provides advanced features missing in most competitor tools, such as support for
business calendars and project-level simulation across multiple processes (Figure 5).

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  5 
 Project Simulation Definition

Calendar based simulation

Scenario for the Multiple process

process model simulation

Role Settings

Figure 5. Project-level simulation in BPM Studio. Source: Oracle

Process Composer 
In addition to BPM Studio, Oracle supports business empowerment through a second tool
called Process Composer (Figure 6). Process Composer runs in a browser rather than in
JDeveloper, expanding access to a wider business audience. Like BPM Studio, it also
provides BPMN editing, but without the ability to define implementation components, such
as human tasks, services, or business objects. Composer can be used either top-down, to
create process blueprints, essentially process models annotated for completion by developers
in BPM Studio, or bottom-up, to recompose executable processes from pre-defined
components in the business catalog and exposed as project templates. As Process Composer
evolves to support a wider range of process design artifacts, it will become the
comprehensive tool for business users and process analysts to model and design human-
centric processes.

Figure 6. Process Composer provides BPMN 2.0-based process design through a web browser.
Source: Oracle

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  6 
Each project template includes selected components representing human tasks, services,
business objects, and more. Using templates, business analysts can reuse them in new or
modified processes, and even deploy them directly to the runtime environment without
touching JDeveloper. Since project templates are derived from BPM projects, they include
customization constraints to promote process governance and prevent unauthorized
modification of selected features. In addition, Process Composer allows business analysts to
design or modify Activity Guides and Business Rules, both discussed later in this report.

Form Design 
For the business analyst, BPM Studio lets you generate basic task forms automatically in one
click from specified task data and outcome values (such as Approve or Reject). In addition,
the tool provides wizards that simplify development of custom task forms and screenflows.
BPM task forms are based on the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) and
are configured using wizards as Java Server Page XML (.jspx) files. ADF is a declarative
framework based on industry standard Java Server Faces (JSF). It includes a rich set of
interactive components, a zero-code WYSIWYG designer, and for BPM features wizards for
autogeneration of task UI forms. Business users can drag and drop form design components
and configure their binding to BPM data and actions.
ADF can abstract any back-end data source as a data control and mash it up with BPM data
to create richer forms. ADF also includes rich data visualization components including
variety of charts and graphs, Gantt charts, map viewers, hierarchy viewers etc. that can be
easily used to create very compelling BPM forms. Custom task forms support rich tabbed
interfaces including process data, charts and graphs, and action buttons linked to the process
model (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Custom BPM task forms are wizard-configurable without coding. Source: Oracle

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  7 
Business Rules 
Business rules let organizations encapsulate business decision logic in reusable components
defined outside of the processes that use them. Most BPMSs force process designers to
choose between very simple rules defined within the BPMS design environment and third-
party Business Rule Management Suites that must be integrated with the BPMS. Oracle
stands out by bundling and integrating a full-featured BRMS, Oracle Business Rules, within
the BPMS tooling, accessible from either BPM Studio or Composer.
The Oracle Business Rules Editor supports both IF/THEN rules and Decision Tables. Each
condition row in a Decision Table (Figure 8) tests the allowed values of a data input to the
ruleset, called a fact. Each column represents a particular bucketset, an enumerated fact
value or range. The combination of all the condition tests in a column specifies an action,
typically setting the value of a data output. The complete Decision Table defines a ruleset,
deployed as a business rule component invoked from the process as a Business Rule task in
BPMN. The editor provides quick tools for resolving gaps and conflicts in the table.
Business rules can be used to simplify complex routing logic at gateways, detailed task
assignment and workflow, and dynamic service selection. The combination of a powerful
business-friendly rule designer with direct integration to BPMN process models is another
reason Oracle BPM 11g stands out from the BPMS pack.

Figure 8. Decision Table design in the Business Rules Editor. Source: Oracle

Process Analytics 
Process Analytics (Figure 9) provide process performance monitoring through either BPM
Workspace dashboards or Oracle BAM, also bundled and integrated with the suite. Out-of-
the-box metrics for activities and processes include active instance count and average time to
complete, broken out by process, activity, and participant. In addition to the predefined
metrics, process designers can create custom metrics using business indicators, a special
type of process variable for Process Analytics measures and dimensions. Oracle BPM
provides a set of pre-defined cubes, database structures that let you break out aggregated
measures in real time by various dimensions.
Business analysts configure Process Analytics by specifying the business indicators and
sampling points in the process. In addition, they can define measurement marks, points in
the process flow where one or more specified business indicators are sampled and written to

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  8 
the Process Analytics database. Measurement marks can also be used to define the start and
end of intervals in the process for time or cost analysis. At runtime, Process Analytics data
can be displayed in a variety of user-configured charts and gauges in the BPM Workspace or
Business Spaces. Process Analytics also supports process cubes for integration with Oracle
Business Intelligence, allowing for multi-dimensional historical analysis in conjunction with
business data outside of BPM.

Figure 9. Business indicators and measurement marks defined in the process model drive
performance dashboards in BPM Workspace or Process Spaces. Source: Oracle

Robust Human‐Centric BPM  
Historically, BPM Suites built on a strong SOA foundation have been weak in human-
centric BPM. Oracle BPM Suite 11g, however, provides advanced human task support that
matches or surpasses the small human-centric pureplay tools.

Process Spaces 
In addition to the standard BPM Workspace, a conventional BPM worklist environment,
Oracle BPM Suite 11g provides a new, user-configurable Web 2.0-based collaboration
environment called Process Spaces. Process Spaces is the BPM flavor of Oracle WebCenter
Spaces, a role-based runtime environment built on Oracle WebCenter Framework and ADF.
In addition to providing access to workflow tasks and performance dashboards, Process
Spaces supports business users in routine daily tasks such as managing meetings, email, and
team collaboration both at design time and runtime. Process Spaces are the cornerstone of
what Oracle calls Social BPM, fit-for-purpose collaboration environments, leveraging Web
2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technology, that put process tasks and dashboards in a social context
including team calendars, discussions, shared documents, and notifications.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  9 
Figure 10. Process Spaces built on Oracle WebCenter are user-configurable Web 2.0 mashups
of BPM, team collaboration, and other components. Source: Oracle
Each tab in Oracle WebCenter Spaces (Figure 10) represents a different application, service,
or group space. A group space is a collection of content and services that helps people
collaborate on a particular task. Users can access spaces that are predefined as well as those
they define themselves by selecting and arranging components from catalogued components
including documents, discussions, portlets, email, search, RSS feeds, external Web 2.0
widgets, and of course BPM components such as task lists. Process Spaces support team
collaboration, unstructured processes, and social networking around a particular project,
task, or problem.

Activity Guides 
For many human-centric processes, conventional worklists and BPMN diagrams are not the
most intuitive way to present process tasks to end users in the context of the end-to-end
flow. To address this, Oracle created the notion of guided business processes, in which
process designers define milestones in the BPMN model and an alternative end user
interface called an activity guide (Figure 11) that tracks progress through the milestones.
Activity guides can be defined either in BPM Studio or Composer.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  10 
Figure 11. Activity guide for employee onboarding process. Source: Oracle

Human Workflow 
Oracle uses the same Human Task component for BPMN 2.0-based processes as it does for
BPEL. A User task in the BPMN model does not execute task form and actions directly.
Instead, it instantiates a human task in a separate Human Workflow Service, and waits for
task completion. The task is defined in a Human Task Editor, the same one used in Oracle
SOA Suite for BPEL processes. At runtime, end users interact with worklists and task forms
through the Human Workflow Service. When a user completes a task, the service reports
the completion status (called task outcome) back to the process, which resumes at that point.
What makes this different from many other BPM Suites is that approval chains and similar
human workflows related to the task are modeled as part of the Human Task component, not
part of the process. Only when the entire task, including its associated approval chain, is
complete does the Human Workflow Service report outcome back to the process. Oracle
calls these complex human tasks with approval chains interactive activities. There are
several different types, representing different types of approval chains.
Interactive activities simplify the process logic by encapsulating approval chains within
reusable task components. It is always possible to model human workflow the old-fashioned
way – using simple tasks and modeling approval chains within the BPMN process – but for
many processes it is more convenient to use interactive activities.
Ad-hoc processing is possible in the human workflow. An assigned task performer can
reassign or delegate the task at runtime, and new approvers may be inserted into the chain at
runtime (Figure 12). In addition, tight integration with business rules provides dynamic
workflows , to not only make decisions inside the business process but also for rule-based
escalations, nominations, delegations, and load balancing of human tasks.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  11 
Figure 12. Ad hoc workflow inserting an additional reviewer at runtime. Source: Oracle

Single Foundation for BPM and SOA 
Unified Runtime 
If you want a BPMS that features business-empowered implementation and robust human
task support, usually what you have to give up is a strong SOA foundation well integrated
with the BPM stack. Not so with Oracle BPM 11g. The Oracle BPM Suite architecture
(Figure 13) is built on top of a world-class SOA foundation that features a unified runtime
including BPMN 2.0 and BPEL orchestration, human task management, and business rules.
Oracle SOA Suite’s scalable grid infrastructure supports extremely high transaction rates
and thousands of concurrent users for both system and human workflows. The integration
layer offers a common JCA-based connectivity infrastructure, Oracle adapters, Oracle
Service Bus, mediation flows, and policy-based security and quality of service. You also get
UDDI, identity services, B2B services, event infrastructure, and other Fusion Middleware
features missing in almost any human-centric BPMS from a pureplay vendor.

BPMN‐SOA Links 
Unlike other BPMSs, Oracle makes the linkage between BPMN shapes and their SOA
component implementations explicit and configurable in the process model. BPMN User
tasks call human task components; BPMN Business Rule tasks call business rule
components; BPMN Service tasks call synchronous service composites, including BPEL
processes; BPMN Send/Receive tasks and Message events invoke asynchronous composites,
including other BPMN processes, and their callbacks. BPMN Signal events leverage the
power of the Fusion Event Delivery Network for loosely coupled publish-subscribe
integration based on business events. BPMN Error events reference exceptions defined in
the BPM Studio business catalog.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  12 
 Shared Rich End User Interaction
BPA BPMN  Web based customization
Model
Customer

Customer

Create and
Submit Order
Process
Payment
Notify
User
Download
Video

Worklist Process Portal MS Office 

Copy to

Business View

BPMN 2.0, 
BPEL
BPM Studio Process Composer
(with Business and IT views)
Human Business
BPEL BPMN Rules Mediator
Workflow

BAM Unified Runtime

Common JCA‐based connectivity infrastructure Policy Manager
Optimized 
binding
B2B Oracle Service Bus
Web‐based
console
Repository
Repository

Figure 13. Unified runtime architecture. Source: Oracle

Oracle does not force a choice between BPEL and BPMN 2.0. BPM 11g provides process
engines for both layered on common shared services. BPEL will continue to play a major
role in defining automated composite services that are called by BPMN business processes.

Unified IDE 
The BPM Studio in JDeveloper is the common IDE for BPM, SOA, and ADF web
development. It contains all the editors needed to define BPMN processes, BPEL processes,
composite services, human tasks, business rules, data types, and user interfaces. BPM Studio
provides separate modes for developers and business analysts, exposing the editors
appropriate to each role. All of the components used in a BPM project are collected in the
business catalog, which is organized into modules. By saving a project as a template,
executable business process components can be reassembled by process analysts using the
browser-based Process Composer.

Unified Service Component Architecture 
Both BPM and SOA composites are described using the Service Component Architecture
(SCA) standard. Connections between the service components representing each process,
service, human task, business rule, and adapter used in a BPM project are modeled as wires
in the SCA Composite Editor (Figure 14). Security and quality of service properties can be
specified for the wires using policies defined either in JDeveloper or at runtime in Enterprise
Manager. Services that call a project component are shown in the left column; references
(external services called by a component) are shown in the right column.

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  13 
Figure 14. Composite editor shows connections between all solution components. Source:
Oracle
The Metadata Services (MDS) repository stores deployed applications and components as
well as projects and project templates for both BPM and SOA. MDS is a key enabler of
collaborative process design and business-empowered implementation using Process
Composer. The implementation of each BPMN activity and event is defined by a service
component.

Unified Administration 
BPM and SOA are integrated in runtime monitoring and administration as well, through
Oracle Enterprise Manager, the administrator console for Fusion Middleware. All deployed
BPM and SOA composite applications are tracked by Enterprise Manager, which
continuously monitors the state of running instances with flow tracing and fault recovery.
That means you don’t need to go to different tools to track down problems and take
corrective action, since Enterprise Manager provides a uniform view from high level
processes down to low level service components. For debugging and fault recovery,
administrators can drill down to the process audit trail (Figure 15). The flow trace in
Enterprise Manager is a list of inter-component messages in a BPMN process instance,
operation across instances of the various components involved in the process, linked by
execution context ID (ECID).

Figure 15. Process Audit flow trace in Oracle Enterprise Manager. Source: Oracle

  Bruce Silver Associates 2010  14 
The Bottom Line 
Oracle BPM 11g is a game-changer. It gives business analysts and executable process
developers a common process model based on the BPMN 2.0 standard. It provides advanced
human task support with features like Process Spaces, custom ADF forms and screenflows,
activity guides, and ad hoc workflow. It provides advanced business rule support as well.
And it provides browser-based tooling that lets business users modify processes and
business rules without developer assistance.
At the same time, it is loaded with features for IT, starting with a world-class SOA
foundation – SCA, BPEL, JCA, service bus, and a comprehensive message and event
delivery infrastructure. Process modeling and executable design conform to the BPMN 2.0
standard, including the “hard parts” where other BPMN-based BPMSs have always feared to
tread: boundary events (interrupting and non-interrupting), inter-process messaging, Error
throw-catch, and publish-subscribe integration using Signal events.
Oracle calls it “BPM without barriers” – human-centric together with SOA, business
empowerment with strong IT values, all based on industry standards. BPM has become
strategic at Oracle not just for its middleware business but for its packaged applications as
well, including Fusion Applications, Primavera project management, Enterprise Content
Management, and Enterprise Repository. Put it all together and Oracle BPM 11g is
probably a year ahead of its closest competitor. The tools are free downloads. You should
definitely give Oracle BPM 11g a look of your own.

Bruce Silver
June 2010

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