Thursday, December 6, 2007

AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 MP2 + BEA World China

Hi there,

The product team is very happy to announce that AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 MP2 is now available for download! For the latest platform support information and documentation please be sure to visit our e-docs site.

city_shanghai Now changing gears a bit, moving the focus to Asia. For those of you in Shanghai, or close proximity, be sure to come by to BEA World next week. There is a packed agenda full of interesting presentations. This is also a good opportunity to meet some of the ALBPM team during the event - engineering & product management.

BEA World China is typically our biggest customer event. It brings together thousands of customers. The event will demonstrate our latest products and allow you to get connected with our main experts. Finally, we are celebrating 10 years of BEA in China!

This is it for now. Next week I will try to post some udpates from Shanghai.

Cheers,

--alex



Technorati tags:

Thursday, November 8, 2007

AquaLogic BPM 5.7 Maintenance Pack 3 is now available!

If you are using AquaLogic BPM suite version 5.7, you may want to take a look at the latest maintenance pack - ALBPM 5.7 MP3 is now available for download.

You may also consider learning a bit about ALBPM 6.0 as well. :-)

Cheers,

--alex




Technorati tags:

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

AquaLogic BPM & AquaLogic Service Bus (ALBPM + ALSB)

Hi,

There has been several emails about ALBPM and ALSB lately. I would like to share with you some resources that showcase the two products working together.

ALBPM 6.0 & ALSB 2.6: This is a good overview article showcasing how ALBPM 6.0 can easily integrate with ALSB. It gives you a complete walkthrough of the new capabilities and some screen shots as well.

ALBPM 6.0 Documentation: ALBPM 6.0 + ALSB: Catalogue Services from ALSB: Here is an entry on ALBPM docs showing step by step how the Catalogue Services can work with ALSB services. It also demonstrate the evolution of the integration. You no longer have to deal with WSDLs and other WS constructs. It is all done in just a few clicks. :)

ALBPM 6.0 Documentation: Calling a ALSB service from ALBPM - Code: This is a doc entry showing how once ALBPM has introspected the different proxy services inside ALSB you can easily call them from a process.

ALBPM 5.7 and ALSB: Here is an older article showing how the integration worked over a year ago. You can compare this with the first item in this list and see how much better things are in ALBPM 6.0.

SOA & BPM: This is a very nice Podcast about the power of BPM and SOA done by our VP Shane Pearson and Gartner. For additional information on ALBPM, BPM, SOA, be sure to visit our Resource Center.

As more information becomes available I may update this post or have a new post.

Cheers,

--alex




Technorati tags:

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Ad-Hoc BPM - the edge of process & collaboration.

Hi,

AquaLogic BPM Suite provides several ways to support ad-hoc interactions inside and outside of a process, especially interactions that can not be easily mapped to a business process flow. I am talking about the activities that happen at the very edge of process space in the collaboration space.

Below is a graphical representation of this notion. Jesper Joergensen, one of my colleagues created this image for a presentation during BEA World and it demonstrates very nicely the interaction between processes and external collaboration activities that take place in order to complete a task.

 AquaLogic_BPM_Interactions

So for example when you call Bob in Finance and ask him about the budget planning for next year, or when you talk to Mary about collaborating on an internal product review, you are in fact solving a task in a process. The ability to connect all these interactions and map them to a business process flow can be difficult to represent - some level of support is needed to make this possible. So next time when you do talk with Bob about the budget plan you could tie the interaction with a LiveSpace where the information related to the process can be collected and made available to other participants in the process. Another great example is the integration we have available with ALUI and WLP portals. You can surface process information, more specifically via ALUI, you get all the benefits of a deeper collaboration integration.

We should also include the new generation of BEA Social Computing products like AquaLogic Pages and see how easy it is to create a new ad-hoc collaboration space and connect with ALBPM via RSS in just a few clicks. A very interesting posting from Shane Pearson can give you more insight on how these new technologies are increasingly playing a role in the enterprise. You can leverage all the latest BEA Social Computing technologies today with your BPM project.

In closing, ALBPM has a variety of ways to connect with end users, both inside and outside of a process. It also provides support for ad-hoc interactions that take place in order to complete a particular task. As always, I would like to thank you for all your feedback and recommendations, keep them coming to us. If you are new to BPM when you get a moment take AquaLogic BPM Suite for a spin and let us know what you think.

Cheers,

--alex



Technorati tags:

Monday, October 8, 2007

ALBPM 6.0 & Debug + Bonus Material

Hi,

Here is a quick look into the new debugging environment in ALBPM 6.0. The flow itself is for the most part similar to 5.7, with a few Eclipse related nuances. Check it out.

After a business user has defined a business process, developers can start integrating services using Studio. Much like a typical IDE you can make use of break points and other debugging features. Just right click on the code window and the contextual menu will show up. There you will see an option to Toggle Breakpoints as seen in the image below.

 debug_01_breakpoints

When you are done adding break points right click on the code panel and from the contextual menu select the option to "Debug this", see next image. From there you will be placed in debug mode and the debug session will start.

 debug_02_runDebug

Immediately after you get into debugging mode, you will notice two new tabs present under the code panel. One is the "Breakpoint" tab with a list of all your break points. The other tab is the "Debug" tab, with your typical options to run, stop, run over, run into, etc.

 debug_03_tabs

Next, as you start to run through the code you will see variable declarations being updated on the right panel. You can also see the execution arrow making progress in your code panel on the right side. The line being executed will have a blue arrow pointing to it, as shown below:

 debug_04_run

As you can see debugging with ALBPM 6.0 is very simple and straight forward. The flow is very similar to 5.7, but now you are running in the Eclipse environment. BTW, if you are moving to 6.0 be sure to get Maintenance Pack 1 - just came out.

Cheers,

--alex

PS: Now to the Bonus Material...

If you made i this far I would like to share with you some pictures from Fleet Week in San Francisco taken this past weekend. Below are some shots from the Blue Angels flying around the bay.

BLueAngels01

BlueAngels03

BlueAngels04



Technorati tags:

Friday, October 5, 2007

AquaLogic BPM 6.0 Suite MP1 is out!

Hi,

AquaLogic BPM 6.0 MP1 (Maintenance Pack 1) is out with several improvements - specially around the integration with Eclipse. You will find the Studio environment to be more responsive, lighter to download, more stable, and reliable. Documentation was augmented with more topics and content. Customers looking for more 64 bit support should be happy with our latest matrix of supported configurations.

I think you will be pleased with the progress in ALBPM 6.0 MP1. As always please continue to share your feedback with us.

Cheers,

--alex

PS: We are participating in many events. Come check out the products and chat with the team.





Technorati tags:

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

BEA World 2007 - San Francisco (Day 1)

The conference is taking place in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, US. In October, it goes to Barcelona, Spain. In December, it takes a 180 turn and goes to Shanghai, China. Come talk to us and see the new products! 

BEA_World_2007a  

Below is the AquaLogic BPM Suite booth with demos and information about the product. We will also be showing the new ALBPM Suite 6.0 MP1, for folks interested in the latest stuff. 

BEA_World_2007b

Next image is our 3 for 1 special - Product Marketing (Jesper), Product Management (me), Product Engineering (Mariano), all in one place. Thanks to Sarah Kim, Dev2Dev Editor, for these nice picture! 

jesper_alex_mariano

Lots of things to do, just about every BEA product can be seen here. This is a great opportunity to tell us what you want in future releases and also get to see the latest stuff. Below is the expo area, early morning look, with booths from BEA, partners, and sponsors. 

BEA_World_2007d

The Keynote sessions and the conference sessions will start tomorrow.

See you around the conference!

Cheers,

--alex



Technorati tags:

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

BPEL 2.0 - Quick look at the BPEL support in AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0.

In AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 we are continuing to support Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and have updated our implementation to the latest version of the spec. Typically at this point the first question we get is: What is new in BPEL 2.0? The contributors at Wikipedia have posted a nice summary for you. If you got extra time you may consider reading the complete spec.

To see our BPEL support in action first download a copy of ALBPM Studio 6.0 - be sure to enable the BPEL flag in your project preferences as shown below. To do this just right click on the project preferences and select the BPEL check box. This will enable all the BPEL related support files to be loaded with the project.

 BPEL_Support1a

Once you have Studio configured and running, you are ready to create a new BPEL process. Just select New >> Process >> and pick the BPEL option. You can also right click under the Process folder in the Project Navigator as shown in the next figure.

At this point the BPEL designer will be invoked and you can start to create your process. You can have multiple projects all opened at the same time under the Project Navigator window. You can also work on different process formats side-by-side, let's say one department needs BPEL 2.0, and another department requires all their processes to be in XPDL 2.0.

 BPEL_Support2a

From the BPEL designer you will see the options for the typical BPEL constructs such as: Invoke, Receive, Reply, Assign, Validate, Switch, Pick, While, the list goes on... You can use drag and drop to quickly build your process flow on the canvas. The result in the directory structure of your project is a .bpel file with the XML representation of the process flow.

 BPEL_Support3a

A quick way to check and start working with your process is to hit the web services console at "http://your-machine-name:9000/albpmServices" - shown in the figure below. From there you will get a list of all processes deployed as web services with their respective WSDLs. You can also call the different services from other processes or from different client applications.

 BPEL_Support4a

I hope this quick overview gets you a bit more familiar with some of the new things we have added to ALBPM 6.0. As always your feedback is most welcome - if you are going to be around in San Francisco from BEA World 2007, please come by and meet the team and share your views directly with us.

Cheers,

--alex


Technorati tags:

Monday, August 13, 2007

AquaLogic Business Process Management User Group @ BEA World

The ALBPM User Group meeting, during BEA World 2007, will take place Monday, September 10th, 1pm - 5pm. For more information visit the BEA World site. This is a great opportunity to talk about the product, meet the team, and share your comments.

Cheers,

--alex

Thursday, August 2, 2007

New report from Bruce Silver on AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 is out!

You can download the latest BPMS report from Bruce Silver on AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 from the BPM Institute web site. Just sign up for a free membership and get access to the report.

Monday, July 30, 2007

AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0 - New Configuration Wizard!

In ALBPM 6.0 the task of configuring an ALBPM Engine for WebLogic has been greatly simplified. One of the new features in ALBPM 6.0 is the new Configuration Wizard for WebLogic 9 and 10. In the past if you configured ALBPM with WLS you had to deal with JMS topic configurations, downloading and configuring JDBC drivers, as well as several other highly manual steps. This is no longer the case.

 ALBPM60ConfigWizardLauch

All you have to do now is follow the steps in the wizard providing basic information. The wizard will perform the entire required configuration and set a new domain with ALBPM Engine running on WLS. In addition you get a sample process project deployed including a sample process. A copy of the WorkSpace also gets deployed so you can interact with the sample project and make sure the installation got done ok for your environment.

 ALBPM60ConfigWizardCompleted

You can kick off the wizard from a short cut in the Applications Menu, or directly in the directory structure under "your_installation_directory\albpm6.0\j2eewl\bin\albpmconfigwizard". For future releases we are considering to add similar feature for WebSphere. Additional information about the config wizard is available on e-docs.

Let us know what you think?

Cheers,

--alex

New BPM Resource Center is live!

The new BPM Resource Center is now available. Here is a brief intro: "Business Process Management (BPM) is a strategy and toolset for bringing process excellence - and the myriad of downstream benefits - to the masses. BPM helps organizations ensure that business processes are optimally defined, managed, executed and monitored. Read on to discover how BPM can help you solve your toughest business challenges."

Go check it out!

Cheers,

--alex

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Ten reasons why you should look at the new AquaLogic BPM Suite 6.0.

Hi there!

Here are ten reasons why you should take a look at ALBPM 6.0:

1. Support for XPDL 2.0 and BPEL 2.0. Web Services capabilities now include support for WS-Security, Document-Literal style and WS-I compliance.

2. Brand new ALBPM WorkSpace built with JSF and a beautiful new interface.

 AT_WorkSpace60

3. New Business Rules capabilities include a new graphical editor and the ability to change rules at run time.

4. New RSS capabilities to share process information on any compliant reader such as Outlook 2007.

 AT_OutLook2007_ALBPM60

5. A new type of Interactive activity: Decision activities, which presents the end user with recommendations on what decision to take based on past experience.

6. ALBPM Studio application is now built on top of the Eclipse platform!

 AT_StudioOnEclipse60

7. ALBPM Studio provides three different pre-configured profiles for Business Analysts, Business Architects, and Developers.

 AT_ALBPM_Studio60_Profiles

8. BPM and SOA just got better and easier with a native and improved integration with ALSB 2.6.

 AT_BPM_SOA_ALSB

9. New Configuration Wizard allows you to get up and running with the AquaLogic BPM Enterprise Engine in minutes.

10. Round-trip Simulation - create simulation models from the actual execution of processes from run-time.

ALBPM 6.0 is out and available for download. We hope you will enjoy this new release. We appreciate all your feedback.

Cheers,

--alex





Technorati tags:

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Native RSS support in AquaLogic BPM Suite

RSS is becoming more pervasive on the web. It provides an easy way to distribute information, feeds, that can be easily read and aggregated via client programs, readers, that support RSS format.

For PUMA, our next major release of AquaLogic BPM Suite (ALBPM), the use of RSS will provide a great opportunity to expand how business users can get access to their business processes information. You will start to see the familiar RSS feed icon ( feed-icon ) showing up inside the ALBPM Workspace. Information about the user's process instance will become available in a feed. Below is an early look, pre-GA, screen shot of the new Workspace already showing the RSS feed capability in the right upper-corner.

 RSS_1

Once a user gets access to their RSS feed they can use it with their favorite reader application. After the login step is completed the reader can display the process information. This can be very powerful specially if you need a simple and quick way to display and integrate information about your processes. For example, you could use Microsoft Outlook 2007 to get the latest process update. Another example below, could be the use of Apple Safari browser to read RSS feeds.

RSS_4

ALBPM feeds can also be used within portals that support RSS. Or for that matter any web based application that can surface feeds. A good example could be using the RSS feeds from ALBPM with the new AquaLogic Pages product. Business users running AquaLogic Pages may decide to create a new situational application on the fly exposing process information to end users.

See you soon, with more information about PUMA!

Cheers,

--alex

Monday, April 9, 2007

Time to Participate!

In May we will be making a stop in Atlanta to attend and present during the BEA Participate conference.

Several folks from the AquaLogic BPM Suite (ALBPM) group will be there. This will be a great opportunity to meet, to talk about the product, and to learn more about new releases. The conference will cover both AquaLogic User Interaction (ALUI) and ALBPM. A complete agenda is available with details about every session.

Hope to see you there!

--alex

Friday, March 16, 2007

AquaLogic BPM Studio on Eclipse

The BPM team in Argentina is busy working hard on the next major release of AquaLogic BPM Suite. One of the main areas of work is moving the AquaLogic BPM Studio to Eclipse. Below is a screen shot of the new AquaLogic BPM Studio already running on Eclipse 3.2.2. 

ALBPM_Studio_Eclipse_Small

We welcome your comments and questions.
Cheers,
--alex

Saturday, March 3, 2007

AquaLogic BPM Suite 5.7 MP2 is out!

I would like to share with you that AquaLogic BPM Suite 5.7 MP2 is now available for download!

Cheers,

--alex

Friday, March 2, 2007

AquaLogic BPM Suite and AquaLogic Service Bus

I have come across several SOA projects taking advantage of the synergies between AquaLogic BPM Suite (ALBPM) and AquaLogic Service Bus (ALSB). The integration between the two products is available today and has been available for sometime now. ALBPM can provide orchestration capabilities to business services exposed in the bus and also benefit from its extensive set of features.

For our next major release code name PUMA, we are planing to extend the integration with ALSB making it more seamless. To achieve this closer integration we are using the Custom Transport SDK made available by the ALSB team. By providing an implementation of the custom transport we will be able to have a direct dialog with the bus - among other things this will improve the communication performance between the two products.

Below is a pre-release screen shot of the ALBPM custom transport already working, deployed, inside ALSB:

 ALBPM_CustomTransport

PUMA will bring additional cool features to improve the ALBPM-ALSB integration. Features such as: automatic publication and subscription of services, better authentication support via ws-security, etc. I will try to showcase them here as time permits.

Cheers;

--alex