Tutorials SOABusiness Process Management is regarded as the field of knowledge that is situated somewhere between Information Technology and management. It encompasses tools, methods, and approaches to the design, control, enacting, and analysis of operational Business processes that involve people, applications, documents, Businesses, and other sources of data.
The phrase “operational Business processes” is used in reference to Business processes that occur often and are performed by Businesses in the context of their day to day operations, rather than strategic decision making processes that are strictly performed in the top management level of a Business. Business Process Management is different from Business process reengineering, which was an approach that was very popular in the last decade, because of the fact that its goal is not one off revolutionary changes to Business processes, but at the continuous evolution thereof. What is more, Business process management tends to combine Information Technology with management methodologies.
Business Process Management entails activities that are performed by Businesses as a means of managing and improving their corporate processes. This goal is of course not a novel one, but in recent years, such software tools as Business management process systems have helped improve the rate at which such activities are improved, while also reducing the costs. Business Process Management Systems look after the way Business processes are executed, allowing for managers to change and analyze those processes in response to hard data, rather than just hunches.
Service Oriented Analysis refers to the process that is centered on defining conceptual service oriented architecture. Just like in object-oriented analysis, the ultimate goal is to attain an ideal representation of the model. As part of its SOAD framework, IBM is known for providing a variation of service oriented analysis. One of the very first service oriented analysis processes to be published was documented in Service Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design by Thomas Erl. In that publication, conceptual services were deemed “service candidates.” As part of its Service Oriented Architecture Compass, IBM published documents relating to its service oriented analysis.
After a service oriented analysis has been deemed complete, then a service oriented design process will follow up, utilizing the result of the service oriented analysis as a departure point. The process typically subjects conceptual factors to real world services and conditions. The end result is concrete service designs.
Author Thomas Erl is also credited with publishing the very first vendor agnostic service oriented design process in his publication Service Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design. As part of the process described in that book, service candidates produced by the process of service oriented analysis were used as input for service oriented design models. There was some coverage of service oriented design featured in the IBM publication Service Oriented Architecture Compass.
First Page: Service Oriented Design and Development
