Oracle links business process analysis, SOA

Oracle is announcing Wednesday an enhanced version of its business process analysis software that enhances collaboration between process modelers and implementers.

Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite 10.1.3.3 features "closed loop support" for business analyst and IT collaboration, sharing a common process model format with the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle said.

The new business process analysis suite features round-trip engineering, said Amlan Debnath, vice president of server technologies at Oracle. "What it lets you do is share the [business process] model with IT," Debnath said.

A developer, for example could make a change to a business process that would be shared with the business persons.

Modeling of processes is done in the business process analysis package and then executed in the SOA Suite, which features an SOA execution engine that leverages BPEL (Business Process Execution Language). Business users can build and change business models in the business process suite while IT persons can view and modify these processes in the SOA package.

Integration between Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite and Oracle SOA Suite includes linking of business process analysis, execution, and monitoring tools.

Oracle's business process suite is the company's version of the IDS Scheer Aris product, said analyst Bruce Silver, principal at BPMS Watch. Oracle addresses the round-tripping problem in which business persons model a process and hand it off to IT, which then implements its own idea of what it believes the process should be, Silver said.

Oracle has created an intermediate format based on shared metadata between the modeling tool and the implementation tool, which is the SOA suite, Silver said.

"You solve this round-tripping problem now because the model is not just initial requirements for the implementation, but it's a continuous business view of the business process throughout the business process [implementation] lifecycle," said Silver.

Oracle Business Process Suite is a component of the Oracle Fusion Middleware Platform. The suite starts in price at $5,000 for five users.

Author: Paul Krill

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