BPML

[Bob Haugen <linkage@interaccess.com>]

I had an off-list email conversation with Ismael Ghalimi
of the Business Process Modeling Language group which was
recently mentioned on this list, and (I think) clarified
some (but not all) confusing issues.

Ref: http://www.bpmi.org/

Part of the confusion was yet another case of different
meanings of "business process".  BPML is concerned
with the technical infrastructure for executing business
processes, *not* modeling the business processes
themselves from a semantic or economic perspective.

So when they said that external business processes
are greatly different from internal ones, they were talking
about technical differences rather than business-semantic
differences.  (For example, two-phase commit does not work
over the Internet.)

BPML is concerned with the technical infrastructure for
bridging between technically-external business processes
like ebXML collaborations and technically-internal business
processes like a company's internal business applications.
(Their ultimate goals are larger than that, but still 
technically-internal.)

I have not seen their actual specs, but think there could be
both useful cooperation between BPML and ebXML and
also some (possibly troublesome) overlap.

Cooperation: most internal business apps are incapable
of participating in external collaborations, for example,
responding with a business acceptance message to
an ebXML purchase order request.  It would be useful
to have somebody like the BPML group automate
such functions - ebXML does not want to go there.
For example, it would be a great feature for a 
future demo.

Overlap:  BPML wants to specify the "internal" software
for conducting each end of an external business 
collaboration.  So does ebXML. (So does tpaML
and EDOC, for that matter, but those groups are
being harmonized with ebXML.)  To the extent
that BPML covers the interactions with the internal
business apps, they may overlap with EDOC, but
not with ebXML.  To the extent that BPML covers
the interactions involved in the external collaboration,
they overlap with ebXML.  (This will be much more
clear in the next revision of the ebXML metamodel
where commercial transaction patterns are
detailed.)  And of course the internal and external
interfaces need to know how to talk to each other...

BPML's specs are currently only available to members
who pay $2500 fees.  Later this year, they will be free
to all comers.  They are discussing cross-memberships
between ebXML and BPML so they can collaborate with
us better.

Respectfully,
Bob Haugen