The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org)
ABSTRACT
The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) is an independent organization devoted to the development of open specifications for the management of e-Business processes that span multiple applications, corporate departments, and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. BPMI.org defines open specifications such as the Business Process Modelling Language (BPML) and the Business Process Query Language (BPQL) that will enable the standard-based management of e-Business processes with forthcoming Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), in much the same way SQL enabled the standard-based management of business data with off-the-shelf Database Management Systems (DBMS). BPML supports the full lifecycle of enterprise process discovery, design, deployment, execution, maintenance, analysis, and optimisation. Applications that leverage BPML and a BPMS will be agile, flexible, and built to integrate inside and outside the enterprise. BPMS represents the convergence of EAI and B2Bi technologies and solutions, in order to achieve the promise of the process-managed enterprise.
Table of Contents
1. Mission
BPMI.org (the Business Process Management Initiative) is a non-profit organization that empowers companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. The Initiative's mission is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization. BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors for marketing their implementations, and supports businesses for using Business Process Management technologies.
2. Context
On the back-end, technology integration standards such as XML Schema, SOAP, and J2EE enable the convergence of legacy infrastructures toward process-oriented enterprise computing. On the front-end, emerging protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk support the process-level collaboration among business partners.
BPMI.org leverages those converging trends by developing technologies that empower companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet.
BPMI.org defines open specifications, such as the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), and the Business Process Query Language (BPQL), that will enable the standards-based management of e-Business processes with forthcoming Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), in much the same way SQL enabled the standards-based management of business data with off-the-shelf Database Management Systems (DBMS).
3. Scope
BPMI.org considers an e-Business process conducted among two business partners as made of three parts: a Public Interface and two Private Implementations (one for each partner). The Public Interface is common to the partners and is supported by protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk. The Private Implementations are specific to every partner and are described in any executable language. BPML is one such language.
Once developed, the Private Implementation of an e-Business process must be deployed on a platform that will actually execute it. For this purpose, BPMI.org defines BPQL, a standard management interface for the deployment and execution of e-Business processes. Furthermore, BPQL relies on UDDI in order to provide a standard way to register, advertise, and discover the Public Interfaces of e-Business processes.
4. Planning
The first draft of the BPML specification has been submitted to members on August 14, 2000. This draft is currently being discussed and improved within BPMI.org. It will be made available to the public March 8, 2001.
5. Organization
Intalio, Inc. is currently managing BPMI.org in partnership with members of the initiative. A dedicated legal entity will be created in Q1 2001 in order to support the development of this effort. Specifications developed within BPMI.org are free for any organization to implement, extend, or modify.
For more information see http://www.bpmi.org/initiative.html.