Sep 28, 2010

Oracle BPM: How to use start and end events

For modelling a process you have to configure your Jdeveloper 11g like shown in this posting. Then you can create easliy a process like this one:

[The behaviour of the tool palette is a little bit weird, because you can not use drag&drop. You have to click an item and then move the mouse inside the graph. Then the item is beneath the mouse cursor and you can place it with a second click.]

The start event can be changed via right mouse click:

[The start event with the envelope is called "message start event"]

Here an excerpt from the official documentation about the start events:
The none start event is used when no instance trigger is defined. Process analysts can use the none start event as a placeholder when the necessary start event of a process is unknown or is defined and implemented later by process developers. None start events are also used to specify the beginning of a process where the process instance is created by another flow object. Although the none start event does not trigger the creation of a process instance, it is required when triggering a process instance using the following flow objects:
  • Receive task. The receive task must have the Create Instance property set to true.
  • User task implemented with the initiator pattern
The message start event triggers a process instance when a message is received. This message can be sent from another BPMN or BPEL process or from a service. Messages are types of data used for of exchanging information between processes. Just as data objects are used to define the data used within a project, messages are used to define the data used between processes or between a process and a service.
You can exposed a BPMN process as service which enables other processes and applications to invoke the process. To expose a process as a service, your process must begin with a message start event.

The signal start event is similar to a message start event in that it is based on communication from another process or service. However, the message start event responds to a message sent to a specific process. In contrast, the signal start event is a response to a signal broadcast to multiple processes. Signals can be broadcast from a BPMN process using the signal throw event. Using a combination of signal throw and signal start events, you can invoke multiple processes simultaneously.

The timer start event triggers the creation of a process instance based on a specific time condition. You can configure the timer start event to trigger a process instance based on the following:
  • A specific date and time. For example, a process could be triggered on December 31, at 11:59 PM.
  • A recurring interval. For example, a process could be triggered every 10 hours, 5 minutes, 32 seconds.
The following end events can be used:
  • None end event
    like start event
  • Error end event
    Errors end events are normally used with the error boundary event. The error
    boundary event is used to alter the process flow based on a specific error. This flow usually ends using an error end event.
  • Message end event
    like start event
  • Terminate end event
    The terminate end event is used to immediately terminate a process. When a terminate end event is reached, the process ends immediately. There is no error handling or additional clean up performed.

Sep 19, 2010

Fritz!Box: New firmwares with IPv6-support!

Last week AVM released some new firmwares including IPv6-support. After running the online update my Fritz!Box 7270 showed the following version:

[54.04.86]
But how to activate IPv6? After some clicks i found the this tab:

Per default the IPv6-support is switched off:

After activating this checkbox the following options are shown:

That's all.
Now you can use IPv6 for your lan at home and first check is opening the Fritz!Box webinterface via IPv6:

Sep 12, 2010

BPM on Linux...

Running jdeveloper on Linux is not really a problem. Just unzip the tarball (<11g) or run the installer (11g +) and start with ./jdev.
Jdeveloper 11g starts on Linux but after installing the BPM functionality i got:
Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.modeler.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.tests.jdev-test.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.fusion.soa, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.sca.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.soa.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler, oracle.sca.mediator, oracle.bpm.modeler, oracle.bpm.modeler.plugins, oracle.sca.modeler.plugins, oracle.bpm.mapper, oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.internal.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow
With this error messages the bpm.modeler does not work...
Does anybody know, how to get around this problem? (On Windows there are no problems -> BPM-modellers do not use Linux?!)


Sep 8, 2010

Oracle BPM Suite: Overview

In my last posting i provided some links to the documentation. After reading some pages, i will try to give a summary.

Here some explanations to these boxes:
  • BPM Studio = Jdeveloper 11g with BPM installed
  • Business Process Composer = a web-based application that enables business
    users to collaborate with process developers and designers
  • BAM = a complete solution for building interactive, real-time dashboards and proactive alerts for
    monitoring business processes and services
But how do this components fit into Oracle Fusion? Take a look at this picture:

Here you can see, that the BPMN and BPEL Service Engines share the same process core.
The Oracle BPM Engine provides a run-time environment for running business processes. It provides native support for both BPMN and BPEL processes. The Process Core
provides engine functionality that is shared by the BPMN and BPEL engines.
Some of the key functionality performed by the process core includes:
– Manage security
– Generate audit trails
– Invoke services
– Manage persistence
Ok. But why are there two ways for creating business processes? And hwo do they interact with each other?
Here two pictures with typical worksteps:






With knowing all this we are able to start our first project. Finally a screenshot of the business process composer:

Sep 5, 2010

Oracle BPM Suite: Documentation

After getting the BPM Suite ready (Installing BPM components into jdeveloper), here a collections of links to quick-starts, tutorials and the original documentation:
  • Oracle BPM and Oracle Service Bus Integration:
    About the global picture...
  • BPM 11g: For Oracle, It's All About Integration:
    Summarizing the steps to Oracle's BPM...
  • The official documentation library (11g Release 1)
    and inside this documentation you can find the following Guides:
  • Modelling and Implementation Guide
    This guide contains 447 pages and is for the following audience:
    This guide is intended for process developers who use the Business Process Studio application to create and implement business processes, and create and configure Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
  • Administrator's Guide
    Targeted audience (618 pages):
    This document is intended for administrators managing applications on an SOA platform.
  • User's Guide
    With only 150 pages for:
    This document is intended for all users of both Oracle Business Process Management Workspace and Oracle Business Process Management Process Spaces.
  • User's Guide for Oracle Business Composer
    135 pages with the following intended audience:
    This guide is intended for process analysts who use the Business Process Composer application to create and edit the business processes and Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
    This guide is also intended for process developers who must use Business Process Composer. See Section 1.2, "Oracle BPM User Personas" for more information on these user personas.
    This manual assumes that you have basic knowledge of business process design and are familiar with Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) 2.0.
  • Samples and Demos
Enjoy and Happy Reading!