http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero InfoQ Team stefan.tilkov@innoq.com Stefan's Feed Hack. Hpricot rocks. http://www.infoq.com/favicon.ico 2009-01-03T18:35:14+01:00 http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero#view_37321 2008-12-30T19:41:00+01:00 2008-12-30T19:41:00+01:00 Stephen Molitor www.infoq.com/articles/webber-rest-workflow. ]]> http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero#view_37336 2008-12-31T16:05:00+01:00 2008-12-31T16:05:00+01:00 Jean-Jacques Dubray
Ultimately there is a fundamental question that need to be answered: What is the relationship between Resource Orientation and BPM. Interestingly, the BPMN camp does not really think in terms of resources and the REST camp rarely think in terms of BPM. Yet, it is obvious that there has to be an articulation between the two. As hint, I could suggest considering the concept of "Resource Lifecycle" (www.infoq.com/news/2008/06/olc-wbm). ]]> http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero#view_37337 2008-12-31T16:22:00+01:00 2008-12-31T16:22:00+01:00 Stuart Charlton
This was something BEA was trying to get towards with the AquaLogic Pathways and Pages products before the Oracle aquisition, sadly I think it's all stalled now... ]]> http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero#view_37338 2008-12-31T16:31:00+01:00 2008-12-31T16:31:00+01:00 Stuart Charlton
As interesting as it was, I don't think that article is the final word in how to RESTfully describe workflow. Much of that example is about illustrating how to manipulate the various resources used in a workflow -- it doesn't, for exmaple, attempt to model process state as its own resource, independent of the resources manipulated in that process.

I don't really know what the benefit of REST-enabled process state management would be - probably minor. An area where RESTful Web Architecture would shine is, in my opinion, human interaction & task management - independent of process engines. Basically, a RESTful alternative to WS-HumanTask and BPEL4People.

Besides that, I think a media type to model resource lifecyles, as JJ alludes to, would also be very valuable for enterprise use of this architectural style. ]]> http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/12/bpm-zero#view_37367 2009-01-02T11:34:00+01:00 2009-01-02T11:34:00+01:00 Jean-Jacques Dubray >> human interaction & task management - independent of process engines.

The problem however is that REST does not have any semantic to impose "task boundaries" on HATEOS. It does not know anything about users, roles and groups either, let alone ACLs on resources. So I don't really see any advantage REST would bring in the BPM space without additional semantics.

I believe REST is an anti-thesis of BPM as it is designed to enable "free navigation" across vast islands of knowledge and not to build enterprise class process centric information systems.

Some people equate naively the ability to invoke an action by combining a noun to an HTTP verb as an enterprise class capability. As a matter of fact this is what most middleware products do and quickly claim victory. This is exactly how BPM Zero sees REST and claims that it offers a "RESTful" composition platform.

It is not until we will understand that there is indeed an application model specific to connected systems that articulates Service Orientation, Resource Orientation and Event Orientation, that we will be able to build process centric information systems. ]]>