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I want to develop an application that allows its users to define workflows and then executes them.

My environment is JBoss so naturally I'm considering jBPM.

I can NOT use the jBPM graphic workflow design tools since my workflows are very specific and I don't want to expose my users to all jBPM features.

Questions:

  1. Is jBPM robust and scalable?
  2. Is jBPM standard (i.e., used by enough people)?
  3. How do I tie my own workflow GUI to the jBPM engine?
  4. Is jBPM suitable for the job, should I consider a different platform or maybe do it (the workflow logic) myself?
Daniel Rikowski
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Thierno
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4 Answers4

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  1. Is jBPM robust and scalable?

    Ans: Yes, Jbpm is robust and scalable. Need to configure/develop properly..

  2. Is jBPM standard (i.e., used by enough people)?

    Ans : You need to ask with jbpm forum.

  3. How do I tie my own workflow GUI to the jBPM engine?

    Ans : You need to develop processConfiguration file for each workflow, and deploy
    these config file(xml file), this updates jbpm related tables and your workflow related tables.

  4. Is jBPM suitable for the job, should I consider a different platform or maybe do it (the workflow logic) myself?

    Ans : Its suitable for big workflows( where the stages/Nodes and logic are more). And easy to Integrate with rule engine.

Isabel Jinson
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Not a direct answer to your question, but I think you should also take into consideration:

  • As you want your users to define workflows, are you sure you're not just referring to a finite state machine, rather than a workflow?
  • Can the user change existing workflows, and if so: if the workflow is changed, do you want running processes to continue using the old definition, or do you need to be able to migrate the running processes to use the new definition?
Arjan
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How do I tie my own workflow GUI to the jBPM engine?

Readed at jBPM main page:

JBoss jBPM provides a process-oriented programming model (jPDL) that blends the best of both Java and declarative programming techniques.

jBPM jPDL API docs overview

sourcerebels
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  1. Is jBPM robust and scalable?

Yes, you have a wide range of options to scale your engine to a large number of process definitions, process instances and/or requests/second.

  1. Is jBPM standard (i.e., used by enough people)?

Difficult to define standard ;) But it had for example several thousand downloads last week, and it uses standards as much as possible, like the BPMN 2.0 specification for process definitions, a standard that is currently being introduced by almost all BPM vendors.

  1. How do I tie my own workflow GUI to the jBPM engine?

Depends what the GUI is for. Assuming you are referring to a GUI for defining the process definitions and you don't want to use the Eclipse-based or web-based editors that are offered by default, you can: - use any GUI you like as long as it generates the BPMN2 XML, that can then be read in by the process engine - your GUI uses the process fluent Java API to create processes using Java, which can then be loaded into the engine as well

  1. Is jBPM suitable for the job, should I consider a different platform or maybe do it (the workflow logic) myself?

Trying to create a simple workflow engine yourself probably takes more effort than you might think, as you might start out simple, but usually end up adding features like persistence, monitoring, integration, dynamically loading new process definitions and process instance migration, etc. and end up with a home-grown workflow engine you have to maintain ;) You get these features out-of-the-box with jBPM.

Kris

Kris Verlaenen
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