Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step ...

140 Chapter 7 Working from Your Processes to the Clouds
Using these assumptions, we could define “Cut parts” as a process that is
kicked off by a sales event from the sales system that is posted to the manufacturing
system. We can then decompose that “Cut parts” process down to
additional subprocesses if needed (we are not going to do that here). After
the parts are cut, we let manufacturing know that the process is complete,
and it in turn kicks off the process to assemble the parts. Once that is complete,
we return information to the manufacturing system, and it kicks off
the finishing processing. Once that occurs, the inventory system is updated
with the information on the completed product, and the sales system is updated
with the fact that the product is complete and ready for shipment.
The key idea is that the higher-level processes, the meta-application in a
sense, drive the processes and coordinate the exchange of information between
the source and target systems. These processes leverage service interfaces
and abstract the encapsulated processes up to a higher-level set of
processes in support of this business event.
Although this is a very simplistic example, it is nonetheless a good depiction
of the higher-level activities and concepts of BPM.
BPM is the science and mechanism of managing the movement of data
and the invocation of services in the correct and proper order to support the
management and execution of common processes that exist in and between
organizations and internal applications. BPM provides another layer of easily
defined and centrally managed processes that exist on top of an existing set
of processes, application services, and data within any set of applications.
The goal of our discussion is to define a mechanism to bind relevant processes
that exist between internal and external systems in order to support
the flow of information and logic between them, thus maximizing their mutual
value. Moreover, we are looking to define a common, agreed-upon process
that exists between many organizations, has visibility into any number
of integrated systems, and is visible to any system that needs to leverage the
common process model.
Understanding the Semantics
As we move into the world of BPM, we find that the names for particular types
of technologies and approaches can be somewhat confusing. As we mentioned