Monday, June 25, 2012

ILOG Integration with Process Designer (IBM BPM 7.5.1)

Some information I gathered on best practice of ILOG Integration with Process Designer (IBM BPM 7.5.1):



Connecting JRules directly from IBM BPM Via Webservice-SOAP connector:

Just want to add that this is not a best practice, but a nice description of one way to integrate BPM 7.5.1 with JRules. There are multiple factors that impact the integration pattern. You always have to consider the information model in scope for the rules, that is far different from the model for the process. So the BPD will most likely not be able to send all the data to JRules. There is always a middle man, service, responsible to populate the data graph needed for the rule processing. With BPM Advance this could be a SCA component integrated as Advance Integration Service, in BPM Standard a java component exposed as web service and consumed as such within the BPD.



JRules connector directly in IBM BPM

The goal of embedding the ILOG rule editor inside IBM BPM is to provide a much simpler way to modify the behavior of the processes. Those rules live within the process and as such a new version of the process needs to be redeployed every time a rule needs to be changed.



SOA Best Approach:

The SOA based approach for Business Process Management suggests the options as below:

  1. Blueworks Live -> Business Process Manager

  2. ILOG(create Business rules) -> Websphere Integration Developer -> Process Server



Identify the Hosted Transparent Decision Service (HTDS) interface
.
Create an SCA library for HTDS WSDL. 

Defines a mediation module for the interface mapping. 


Joel Krishnan, a Solution Architect for Prolifics, has over 9+ years of IT experience and has worked in many customers implementing technology solutions across multiple business verticals.He is specialized in IBM BPM specifically in ProcessDesigner.He has extensive experince in Architecture/Design and Devopment of IBM BPM.He is also certified in IBM BPM. Joel received his BE in Electrical Engineering in 2002.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

How to Delete Process Applications from IBM BPM 7.5.1

As a new feature of the Business Process Manager V7.5.1 platform, process applications can now be deleted from the repository. In the previous version of BPM, version 7.5.0 & 7.5.0.1, users could only archive snapshots within a process application. This did not remove the application; rather it was merely hidden from the default view and it was still stored in the repository and the database.

In the latest version of BPM, users can now actually delete the process application, and in turn, delete all snapshots and instances tied to that application, including deletion of these entries from the database.

To delete a process application, click on the process application that you want to delete and then click on Manage.


Next, click on Archive Process App and click on Archive.


Click on the Process Apps tab of Process Center and then click on Archived.


Click on the process app that you previously archived and select Delete Process App, click on Delete.


If you then return to the Process Apps tab in Process center, you will notice that the process app no longer appears in the list.

We can actually confirm that all database entries are also removed as part of the process app deletion. Here we can see that the entry for our application named TestApplication was added to the BPMDB in the table LSW_PROJECT.


After deleting the process app, this entry is no longer present in the table. If the application contained snapshots and BPDs, these entries would also be removed from the LSW_SNAPSHOT and LSW_BPD tables respectively.

Please keep in mind, that this cleanup only happens in Process Center. Currently, the product does not have the capaibility to clean up these components on the Process Server side. However, this is an important new feature to help keep your Process Center repository clean and its database clean and efficient.

Seth Gagnon, a Senior Consultant for Prolifics, has over eight years experience in the healthcare industry and has worked with business process management technology to automate member enrollment and claim adjudication for a Fortune 200 healthcare client. He has experience in IBM middleware products such as WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Business Process Manager, and other products in the IBM BPM stack. Seth received his BS in Management Information Systems from the University of CT and his MS in Technology Commercialization from Northeastern University.