Top 3 vendors in smart/intelligent BPM space. (81/285 technotes for 2015)

Changing Market - iBPMs include social, analytics and cloud in their offering

For different factors for iBPMs are

• Composition of intelligent, process-centric applications
• Continuous process improvement (CPI)
• Business transformation
• Digitalized process

Appian

• what is happening right now within their organization, markets and customers, and accelerate the translation of that awareness into action and business outcomes 
• social centricity 

Short Comings

• does not have full CEP(Complex Event Processing) and analytics capabilities 
  
• 
  
  less support for top down transformation.

Pega System

• Largest pure play vendor
  
• can be leveraged for large complex business scenarios
• 
  
  advanced operational decision management capabilities, predictive analytics and IoT integration

Short Comings

• did not focus on low end mid market
  
• finding resource is difficult

IBM BPM

• Steadily moving to cloud
  
• enabling mobile, social, cloud and big data while driving efficiency and optimization into end-to-end processes.
  
  
• starting to handle -  more-agile, lightweight projects.
  
  
• leader in decision management 

Short Comings

• relatively hard to configure and deploy
  
• customer feedback is lukewarm / tepid.

References:

http://bit.ly/1R6rXk4

Benefits of using IBM Business Process Manager Advanced. (80/285 technotes for 2015)

Connectivity

RecProcess Integration Challenges:

1. Variety of different types of messaging - over TCP/IP and SNA etc, propriety data formats, unusual and one off integration mechanism.
   
2. Long running Business processes and handling failure scenarios 
3. Undoing Business processes in a controlled manner.
4. Data mapping is complex
5. Inbound event based Business processes.

• In particular, an automated recovery method allows you to bypass the manual interventions that would have been used
  

Key Concepts for IBM BPM 7.5? (74/285 technotes for 2015)

Process Application - 

• is a packaging and deployment construct
  
• container - which has all the models, data definitions, service models, rules and supporting files to edit and run
  
• can contain 1 or more BPD
• can have dependencies on Toolkits
• acronym must be unique

Toolkit - 

• is a way to manage reusable assets
  
• is a collection of BPM library items that can be shared across multiple projects in IBM Process Designer
• contain - all of the same Library Items as Process Application
• process Application which has dependency with Toolkit - can use all the elements of the toolkit
• can only be edited - by users with the write/admin privileges. It is available as Read-Only in the Process Application
• Process Application can upgrade to the newer version of the toolkit and revert back very easily.

Snapshots & Tracks - are part of the version management infrastructure.

Participant Groups - are how you manage who can work with different parts of the business

Security Groups - are how you manage who can create/edit and deploy Business Processes during deployment.

Scripting/Programming Language - Javascript is used to define logic and manipulate data

Advance Editor - complex Javascript

Programming Model in IBM BPM - Clear seperation

• Model or the Flow
• Implementation

IBM BPM Design Patterns for Performance. (73/285 technotes for 2015)

BPM - performance

• Use high performance disk subsystems
  
• Use most current BPManager and BPMonitor reelase
• Appropriate JVM Heap Size for optimal throughput and response time
• Tune your DB for optimal performance
• Disable tracing and logging
• Configure thread pools to ensure sufficient concerrency
• Use fast, high bandwidth network connections
• For Business Processes - that use 
• BPMN - 
• tune the bpd-queue-capacity & max thread pool size - optimal throuput and scalling
• remove unnecessary snapshots from Process Center
• disable notifications is they are not required
• define auth alias, when using CEI to emit events
• tune cache parameters
• tune participant groups
• optimize data search operations
• tune Event Manager - tune BPD pool size, and worker thread pool size.
• tune number of timer events
• tune Process Server DB - increase log file size & enable file system caching
• BPEL  - 
• maximize the use of micro flow
• use non-incorruptible processes - if macroflow is needed - separate the solution to use microflows and macroflows
• For task and process list queries - use composite query tables
• Use Work Manager based navigation to improve the throughput for long running processes.
• avoid using asynchronous processes unnecessarily.
• avoid overly granular transaction boundaries in SCA

Model & Development:

BPEL / Integration Designer:

• use short running processes - run in one J2EE Transaction with no persistence – Where possible use synchronous interaction for non-interruptible processes
• if macro flow is required create a seperate BPEL
• Avoid using - async calls
• fewer transactional boundaries - best case use      
• Join Transaction (Interface of the called component) - true, 
• Suspend Transaction (Reference of the calling transaction) - false,

• Transaction - any global
• Services that are automated or start other services - web services, enterprise resource applications

Events: 

• start and end - 2 events are sufficient 

Architecture:  

• Choose query tables for task list and process list queries.
• Choose efficient metadata management - 
• performance is better if BO types follow the Java naming standards 
• reuse dataobject type metadata where possible - rather than using DataFactory.create(String URI, String typeName) use DataFactory.create(Type type)             -
• Business State Machine uses more power …  so choose BPEL is possible.
• Use - share by reference libraries where possible
• Ensure content in toolkit is used in several applications.
• BO parsing mode - Applications which Data Streams - like Webservices, SCA components benefit from lazy parsing.  

 

BPMN / BPD:

• Involve Human Interactions     
• Business Process - should have a Business Significance … and not just programming - level granularity

Events:     

• use of Events (CEI) - should be for Business Monitoring - as event emission uses persistent mechanism      
• Business Monitoring should not be confused with IT Monitoring     
• Clients are concerned about state of their business - so use events to track when a task completes / or changes state

Architecture:

• Fast connection between Process Designer and Process Center     
• Minimize the use of Service Tasks -      
• Use searchable business variables - with caution    
• minimize the number of variables used     
• minimize the size of each variable used     
• set variables to null when no longer use - like DB result sets    
• turn off auto-tracking - auto tracking in BPD is not required - enabled by default - if required create tracking groups to track key events. 
  
• avoid BPDs that run perpetually / continuously – as it polls continuously for events -  alternatives - use JMS service or UCA 
• develop efficient coaches          
• Avoid large complex coaches         
• Avoid large / repeating tables - use pagination          
• Always wire coaches to end node     
• Minimize use of Large Javascript scripts - it might produce large DOM models - which is expensive - limit it to 50 lines     
• Avoid direct sql access to internal BPM tables - such as LSW_TASK or LSW_PROCESS - use BPM javascript / rest apis     

Development Best Practice:

• clear variables in exposed human services that are not intended to end 
  
• donot use multi instance loops in the system lane or for batch activities   
• use conditional joins only when necessary
• Avoid global error handling
• Use sequential System lane activities efficiently.
• Ensure Process Center is tuned
• preventing wsdl validation from slow web service performance

References:

http://www.evernote.com/l/AKZrhhusWANG75yXr6HJbHEDMoWmyCvplqM/

Do you want to co-invent the world of the future?

In the era of cognitive computing a vast amount of information will be processed to give new insights to the humongous amount of data that is being generated 

As mentioned by Steve Hamm in his article this will lead to new opportunities as well as challenges. 

Lets see what some some of the best brains in the world have to say about this in the LiveStream by New York Academy of Sciences, ETH Zurich and IBM as they present a discussion between Lino Guzzella, president-elect of ETH, the MIT of Europe; and John Kelly, senior vice president and director of IBM Research, the largest corporate research organization in the world

I will do a synopsis on the video in a later post.

Amazing discussion with IBM Watson

Today was first step for a long exciting journey for me and Anblicks. We had the first scheduled meeting with Jonas Nwuke, Partner Development, IBM Watson.

As planned invited Kumar to be part of the initial discussion and share the excitement.

After a brief introduction about each other Jonas gave a basic overview of IBM Watson.

Some of the key areas goes like this.

1) IBM Watson is a showcase project to mimic the cognitive part of a human brain. This is revolutionizing the Traditional computing and brining in the new concept of Cognitive computing. Rather than programming a computer for different alternatives, here we feed Watson with a corpus of information and then let it decide and come up with suggestions on its own.

2) Rather than giving a single correct answer, it comes up with multiple answers with confidence scores.

3) On top of that its ability to continuously learn and improve its accuracy on its own makes it remarkable.

One line - which actually changed my thought process is, IBM Watson is going to help highly skilled people like Doctors, Lawyers etc do their regular job in a much efficient way.

That said I started thinking about how Google changed the way Software Developers did their coding. It did not replace Software Developers, but rather helped thousands of developers around the globe to become more efficient. Same holds true for others professionals.

Now IBM Watson is going to revolutionize what Google did 16-18 years back. Out of the zetabytes of data, to take a better decision we will be using IBM Watson all the time as our personal guide for any decision making.

Big day coming up - IBM Watson Ecosystem

To be part of the IBM Watson Ecosystem, is it something great?

Lets see what is the IBM Watson Ecosystem. By definition it says : A community of organizations, providing an outlet for developers and content providers to collaborate and create the next generation of cognitive apps.

Wow, that sounds interesting, so who are the organizations in there? 

As of today there are 5 ecosystem partners.

1. Fluid Inc: The app calls upon Watson’s ability to understand the nuances of human language and uncover answers from Big Data. Consumers who use Fluid’s app will interact with rich media and dialogue with Watson, their newfound “cognitive, expert personal shopper.” The Fluid app incorporates the information users share and questions they ask to help them make smart, satisfying purchases by putting the most knowledgeable sales associate in the hands of consumers, every time.

2. MD Buyline: This provider of supply chain solutions for hospitals and healthcare systems has developed a powered-by-Watson application that allows clinical and financial users make timely, informed decisions to help improve quality, value, outcomes and patient satisfaction. Their Hippocrates application will give users access to a research assistant that provides fast, evidence-based recommendations from a wealth of data, to help medical organizations make the best decisions for their physicians and patients.

3. Welltok, Inc: These personalized itineraries, sponsored by health plans, health systems and health retailers, will include tailored activities, relevant content and condition management programs, and reward users for engaging in healthy behaviors. Consumers who use Welltok’s app – CaféWell Concierge built with IBM Watson – will participate in conversations about their health with Watson. By using Watson’s ability to learn from every interaction, the app will offer insights specific to individuals’ health needs.

4. Healthline: Healthline, a leading provider of health information, data and technology solutions, is lending its comprehensive, health reference library to enable the promotion of healthy lifestyles, support disease prevention, and offer clinically-significant, medically-reviewed health information to everyday people so they are able to make more confident healthcare decisions.

5. Elance: Elance operates an online work marketplace of more than 3 million freelancers specializing in such fields as app development, web programming and graphic design. Elance is creating clouds where app providers can tap into a pool of highly-skilled freelancers who are available to build Watson-enabled apps and have completed an IBM certification program.

Apart from these 5 there are the next batch of 25 companies in the pipeline to become part of the IBM Watson Ecosystem. So it makes a total of 30 companies right now. There may be many more, which is not in my knowledge.

Beyond these all the applicants that applied for the IBM Watson Mobile Developer Challenge are going to be part of the IBM Watson Ecosystem.

Lets see what is IBM Watson and its Ecosystem?

In the youtube video - the first line spoken by Mike Rhodin , Senior VP, IBM Watson Group, “If you can take the best practice of a Lawyer and make it replicable through Watson …”. 

Wow, isnt this the same thing that we at Anblicks are thinking?