Update!!!
Must see video Land of Lisp
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Building Up a Flexible Service Request Workflow with jBoss Drools (Markus Döhring)
Markus has released his first article on his rules and workflow integration using drools expert and flow, which he's posted to TSS for discussion.
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=61163
"Interested in learning how business rules and workflow paradigms can be meaningfully combined to model flexible business logic as well as to technically bring the conceptual model to execution using jBoss Drools? This tutorial is split up into multiple parts. In the first part, an exemplary realistic service request process is presented. In the subsequent parts, the focus is shifted on the different Drools technical details and give you step-by-step instructions on how you have to can realize the particular flexibility mechanisms.
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=61163
"Interested in learning how business rules and workflow paradigms can be meaningfully combined to model flexible business logic as well as to technically bring the conceptual model to execution using jBoss Drools? This tutorial is split up into multiple parts. In the first part, an exemplary realistic service request process is presented. In the subsequent parts, the focus is shifted on the different Drools technical details and give you step-by-step instructions on how you have to can realize the particular flexibility mechanisms.
Have a look at the tutorial http://www.markus-doehring.de/phd/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46:servicerequest1&catid=34:droolshowtocategory&Itemid=53"
Drools Flow will soon be split off to become jBPM5
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Planning problems in the cloud
Everybody is talking about the cloud these days, but it too suffers from planning problems.
So I created a new example this weekend for Drools Planner to deal with those planning problems: CloudBalance (available on trunk).
The problem is simple: there are a number of computers and a number of processes, which we want to run on the computers. Every computer should be able to handle the sum of the minimal hardware requirements of all its processes.
Here's part of an example with 100 computers and 200 processes. If I only use a deterministic algorithm, which plans the biggest processes first, I get this unfeasible planning after 1.6 seconds:
As you can see, some processes don't meet their minimal CPU requirements.
On the same example, if I continue planning with tabu search on that original solution, I get this feasible planning after 3.4 seconds:
All processes meet their minimal hardware requirements. And if we give it more time, it will try to shut down computers and save power costs, while still meeting the minimal hardware requirements of all processes.
So I created a new example this weekend for Drools Planner to deal with those planning problems: CloudBalance (available on trunk).
The problem is simple: there are a number of computers and a number of processes, which we want to run on the computers. Every computer should be able to handle the sum of the minimal hardware requirements of all its processes.
Here's part of an example with 100 computers and 200 processes. If I only use a deterministic algorithm, which plans the biggest processes first, I get this unfeasible planning after 1.6 seconds:
As you can see, some processes don't meet their minimal CPU requirements.
On the same example, if I continue planning with tabu search on that original solution, I get this feasible planning after 3.4 seconds:
All processes meet their minimal hardware requirements. And if we give it more time, it will try to shut down computers and save power costs, while still meeting the minimal hardware requirements of all processes.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
jBPM5 and BPMN 2.0
jBPM5 introduces a new language for representing process definitions based on the BPMN 2.0 specification, replacing older (proprietary) formats like jPDL or RuleFlow. Because not everyone might be familiar with this specification, let me give you some background. [The BPMN 2.0 specification has been finalized for some time now, but still needs to go through the final steps of the administrative process. Nevertheless, the contents of the specification seems to be stable and ready to be used.]
What is BPMN 2.0?
"The primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes."
The second version of the Business Process Model and Notation specification (BPMN 2.0) by OMG not only defines a standard on how to graphically represent a business process (like BPMN 1.x), but now also includes execution semantics for the elements defined, and an XML format on how to store (and share) process definitions.
For example, a very simple process that would write out "Hello World" when it is started would look something like this (both visual and using XML):
The BPMN2 specification contains an explanation of how to represent executable business processes, both visually and syntactically, by combining a large set of different node types (and related elements). jBPM5 supports most of the "Common Executable" subset of the BPMN2 specification (containing the most common node types and attributes for specifying executable business processes) and already a few more node types. The documentation gives a detailed overview of which elements an attributes exactly.
To get started, the BPMN2 specification obviously serves as the reference, but additional to that, the jbpm-bpmn2 module contains a lot of junit tests for each of the currently supported node types. These test processes can also serve as simple examples: they don't really represent an entire real life business processes but can definitely be used to show how specific features can be used. For example, the following figures shows the flow chart of a few of those examples. The entire list can be found here.
For example, a very simple process that would write out "Hello World" when it is started would look something like this (both visual and using XML):
<definitions ... >
<process id="com.sample.bpmn.hello" name="Hello World">
<startevent id="_1" name="StartProcess">
<sequenceflow sourceref="_1" targetref="_2">
<scripttask id="_2" name="Hello">
<script>System.out.println("Hello World");</script>
</scripttask>
<sequenceflow sourceref="_2" targetref="_3">
<endevent id="_3" name="EndProcess">
</process>
</definitions>
The BPMN2 specification contains an explanation of how to represent executable business processes, both visually and syntactically, by combining a large set of different node types (and related elements). jBPM5 supports most of the "Common Executable" subset of the BPMN2 specification (containing the most common node types and attributes for specifying executable business processes) and already a few more node types. The documentation gives a detailed overview of which elements an attributes exactly.
To get started, the BPMN2 specification obviously serves as the reference, but additional to that, the jbpm-bpmn2 module contains a lot of junit tests for each of the currently supported node types. These test processes can also serve as simple examples: they don't really represent an entire real life business processes but can definitely be used to show how specific features can be used. For example, the following figures shows the flow chart of a few of those examples. The entire list can be found here.
Want to know more details, check out the BPMN2 chapter in the jBPM5 documentation.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Rules Fest October 2010
Rules Fest is in full swing, http://rulesfest.org/html/home.html. Great attendance with around 100 people and great food :)
Myself, Edson and Davide are here. Davide did a great lunch time talk. Kris will be arriving on Wednesday to help with the BootCamp.
It's been a lot of preparation last week and we'll be very busy this week and next, so apologies if our responses aren't timely on mailing lists and irc.
Myself, Edson and Davide are here. Davide did a great lunch time talk. Kris will be arriving on Wednesday to help with the BootCamp.
It's been a lot of preparation last week and we'll be very busy this week and next, so apologies if our responses aren't timely on mailing lists and irc.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Here we go ... first jBPM5 snapshots !
We've been talking about it for a while now, and working on it even longer, but we believe the time has come to just get the jBPM5 code out there and start asking for community feedback and assistance.
The current jBPM5 snapshot offers open-source business process execution and management, including
So where to start looking?
For those that want to get their hands on the source code:
http://github.com/krisv/jbpm
Documentation (which is still under heavy construction but will be extended significantly in the next few weeks) can be found here.
And you can always download the latest snapshot binaries, sources, the gwt-console, documentation and an installer here:
https://hudson.jboss.org/hudson/job/jBPM5/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/target
Enjoy !
The current jBPM5 snapshot offers open-source business process execution and management, including
- an embeddable, light-weight process engine in Java, supporting native BPMN2 execution
- BPMN2 process modeling, both in Eclipse (developers) and web-based (business users)
- process collaboration, monitoring and management through the Guvnor repository and the management consoles
- human interaction using an independent WS-HT human task service
- strong and powerful integration with business rules and event processing
So where to start looking?
For those that want to get their hands on the source code:
http://github.com/krisv/jbpm
Documentation (which is still under heavy construction but will be extended significantly in the next few weeks) can be found here.
And you can always download the latest snapshot binaries, sources, the gwt-console, documentation and an installer here:
https://hudson.jboss.org/hudson/job/jBPM5/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/target
Enjoy !
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)