I am excited about BPEL’s proliferation. But for some organizations (specifically, IT shops), BPEL is being used in areas it is simple not well-suited. For example, some places where IT has gotten ahead of the business, it is used as a process modeling tool. True, BPEL “represents” a process, it is my opinion that proper business modeling tools be used prior to orchestration being defined in BPEL.

Another scenario I continue to find is that people are using BPEL for just about every piece of logic that goes into a business process being executed. The fact is, BPEL does very well at integrating with other services where complex — and more importantly, “fast-changing” — logic is executed. So, my advise is to not throw away every other tool in the belt in the face of BPEL. Fast-changing decisions are better handled outside of BPEL, especially as you consider the deployment process for BPEL, and most especially if you have long-running processes. Business rules engines, databases, and external services that perform specific logic/functions should continue to be leveraged in these cases. I’d be interested in hearing from others who are concerned about this challenge or maybe have already faced it.

We have recently been working on and completed an entire Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g environment setup for a customer:

• Identity Management
• WebCenter (Framework and Services)
• SOA Suite
• UCM

This article is part of the recent work short blurb series.

I just had a discussion with an M&S SOA Architect about the advantages and disadvantages of BPEL vs ESB, and more importantly, where to use which in practical business scenarios.

This article is part of the recent work short blurb series.

I faced this issue in the context of building an Application Business Connector Service (ABCS) using AIA / PIP, so there was a good message design where Business Objects were in a separate schema, embedded in a schema with Message definitions, which was itself embedded into a bpel project.

I’m registered and attending the Official Fusion Middleware 11g Launch in DC on July 1.

This article is a look at Oracle’s BPEL Sensor approach to publishing real time data and events for in flight BPEL Processes.

Oracle BPEL has tried to fill a gap in the BPEL Spec using sensors. Specifically, sensors allow users to overlay listeners on BPEL tasks and process variables that will generate events out of a process that is being executed. This is definitely a step in the right direction, and does a good job of staying true to the BPEL specification. This document will define what sensors are, how they should be designed into BPEL Processes, and a future outlook of event models.

Asynchronous and Synchronous BPEL processes, as their names imply, process a request in parallel or sequenctially respectively.

Screenshot: Invoke Asynchronous BPEL Process (left) and Synchronous BPEL Process (right)

Polling for changes in a database has been a requirement for systems for a very long time. With Oracle BPEL, of course, this need exists and we will review one way you can go about this:

Objective

Create a BPEL that would poll the database periodically for records with a specific flag.

Step-by-Step Walkthrough with Screenshots

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Oracle Corporation has recently published a white paper written by M&S Consulting, where we take the opportunity to outline an integration approach to Salesforce.com using Oracle BPEL.

A Technical Case Study – Creating an Oracle BPEL adapter to integrate with Salesforce.com - Feb 2009

Below is the introduction to the article, which goes on to detail (with step-by-step screenshots) how to achieve integration with Salesforce.com…

SOA Labels

Among their many characteristics, all too often SOA projects have been labeled in their worst moments as:

• Overly complex in architecture, design, and communication to the organization
• Lacking the ability to control costs during implementation and maintenance
• Difficult to attract and retain talent with valuable experience, deep skills, and real success

It’s Not SOA’s Fault

Guess what. None of these are characteristics of SOA, but instead…