BPM学习笔记1

看OnJava上面的文章做的一些笔记，原文地址是 http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/07/20/businessprocessmodeling.html

BPM（Business Process Modeling）是一组商业流程的设计、执行、管理和监控的技术和标准。 在十年以前，BPM，被认为是workflow，是groupware（群件）技术，帮助管理、驱动大量的联合部门的人工、纸面的流程。现在BPM已经是商业集成（Enterprise integration）技术，包括Service-Oriented Architecture(SOA)，Enterprise Application Integration(EAI)，和Enterprise Serivce Bus(ESB)。复杂的系统交互，通过事先定义的技术合约（通常为XML消息）和另外公司的流程进行交互。
BPM Architecture:

BPM的标准比较多，也比较乱，下面有一个详细的列表：

Table 1. BPM standards

Standard	Organization	Type
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)	OASIS	Execution Language
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)	Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI)	Notation language
Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)	BPMI	Execution language
Business Process Query Language (BPQL)	BPMI	Administration and monitoring interface
Business Process Semantic Model (BPSM)	BPMI	Process metamodel, in fashion of Object Management Group (OMG) Model-Driven Architecture (MDA)
Business Process Extension Layer (BPXL)	BPMI	BPEL extension for transactions, human workflow, business rules
UML Activity Diagrams	OMG	Notation language
Workflow Reference Model	Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)	Architecture
XML Process Definition Language (XPDL)	WfMC	Execution language
Workflow API (WAPI)	WfMC	Administration and monitoring, human interaction, system interaction
Workflow XML (WfXML)	WfMC	Choreography (or similar to it)
Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM)	OMG	Execution language and/or notation language, as MDA metamodel
Business Process Runtime Interface (BPRI)	OMG	Administration and monitoring, human interaction, system interaction, as MDA metamodel
Web Services Choreography Interface (WSCI)	World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)	Choreography
Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL)	W3C	Choreography
Web Services Conversation Language (WSCL)	W3C	Choreography
XLANG	Microsoft	Execution language
Web Services Flow Language (WSFL)	IBM	Execution language
Business Process Schema Specification (BPSS)	OASIS	Choreography (and collaboration)

呵呵，是不是头都有点大了，这么多标准。其实对咱们有用的就那么几种。下面看看作者的一个示例图，就比较清楚了，涉及到的就是BPMN，BPMN-to-BPEL，BPEL engine。在architecture的核心就是执行流程的runtime engine，流程是由XML格式的BPEL语言定义的（最好的BPM执行语言）。流程定义，通过可视化的BPM图形语言BPMN流程图语言进行。BPMN语言可以通过工具转换为BPEL语言，就象UML转换为java语言一样的。