jBPM as SOA Best Practices?

[jkorotney]

At Delphi Corporation, we are considering methods for committing to jBPM as a standard for J2EE development that requires BPM moving forward, and how what might be a best practice approach for implementing jBPM in a SOA sort of setting.

We are concerned that if we have a single jBPM logical service in an SOA, how we will have a clean deployment and wire protocol communication between deployed process definitions and the applications using the jBPM service remotely? Will we have to implement a communication framework (maybe SOAP) that all process definition handlers will have to use to do application/domain specific synchronous functionality (or asynchronous, for that matter)?

What architectural approaches have people implemented?
What specific technologies have they used?
Is SOA a bad idea for jBPM - and if so, why?
Will we have to implement a communication framework (maybe SOAP) that all process definition handlers will have to use to do application/domain specific synchronous functionality (or asynchronous, for that matter)?

Additionally, is there a suggested approach for modeling every UI screen with a node in the process definition? We need to define standard approaches to the process definitions as well - and this is a contested topic for a number of reasons in our group.

Any and all architectural appoaches and ideas would be helpful.

Thanks,
James

[kbarfield]

James,

Each of the JEMS products are intended to be usable both as standalone products and as part of a larger architecture (SOA, ESB, etc). JBoss jBPM can be used by itself to do simple human task workflow, BPM, or web service orchestration, or it can be used with other JEMS products (JBoss Messaging, JBoss Transactions, JBoss Rules, and so on) as part of an SOA offering. JBoss jBPM can be used with other vendor's products as well.

I will call you about the specific questions about architecture approaches.

Thanks,

Kevin Barfield
JBoss

[bradtwurst]

A request: As you answer various questions about architecture approaches, is it possible to mirror those back to this topic for the rest of us to enjoy?

Thanks.