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Bridging the perennial gap between IT and business has long
been the Holy Grail of enterprises. In the past, subject matter
experts worked along side process engineers, systems analysts/architects
and other IT professionals to translate business processes
into specifications that programmers could use to implement
systems. Unfortunately, many times what was delivered did
not quite match what was expected. The problem: each spoke
a different “language” and processes became lost
in translation.
Then came the concept of BPM which holds the promise of providing
end-to-end visibility and control over all parts of a long-lived,
multi-step information request or transaction that spans multiple
applications and people in one or more companies. BPM systems
abstract or logically separate the flow of business processes
from the underlying IT systems that support them to make it
easier for IT and business folks to work together.
A huge step in bridging the language barrier between IT and
business realms was the development of Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) under the auspices of The Organization for
the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).
BPEL provides a common language and precise grammar by which
business logic and interaction protocols can be specified.
Hence, new or changes to existing business processes can be
quickly modeled, developed, and deployed.
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