Today Software AG announced a tight integration between ARIS, its leading Business Process Analysis suite, and webMethods, its SOA-based BPM Suite. The integration features roundtripping and continuous synchronization between business-oriented and developer-oriented models in those tools. The medium of interchange is BPMN 2.0 XML. Although the vast majority of existing ARIS assets are in the form of EPC models, an ARIS-proprietary format, Software AG’s Susan Ganeshan on the press call said that for many reasons BPMN 2.0 was the “right way to go”. All of the process model information (as opposed to the organization model, strategy models, etc.) in EPC is fully mapped to BPMN 2.0, and Software AG now recommends that for new modeling projects where the intent is to automate in webMethods, ARIS users model in BPMN 2.0 from the start. This move is really heartening to me, and highlights the key new feature of BPMN 2.0, which is interchange between modeling tools. One motivation may be SAP’s new enterprise service repository, which exposes thousands of functions the the SAP business suite as services that can be orchestrated in BPMN.
I need to talk to these guys soon about BPMN-I.
Hi Bruce,
thank you for reporting about the newly released integration between ARIS and webMethods. It’s true that BPMN 2 is used as integration layer between both tools, but we are not forcing users to give up on their EPC models. Instead, users are able to select the notation that best suites their needs for process modelling. If they select BPMN 2 – fine. If they select EPC – fine, too! ARIS includes an automated transformation of EPC models to BPMN 2. This transformation is run if the user wants to transfer an EPC model to webMethod.
If interested, your readers can get more details here:
http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/sstein/2011-04-29-about-bpmn-2-interface-between-aris-and-webmethods
Hi Bruce,
Very surprising as why Software AG will be asking their customers to go with BPMN instead of EPC since SAP customers are not the only client for ARIS. Also SAP being coming with APQC standard and we all know BPMN is not interoperable what do you think is the future of software AG BPMS more incomparision ro netweaver BPM.
Thanks
The ARIS guys at Software AG seem very unhappy with my post, but I was just reporting what Software AG said on the press call in answer to a question. If they had said webMethods would have a proprietary EPC import it would not have been worth even tweeting about. And they do support both EPC and BPMN 2.0. The “why” they recommend BPMN for new projects is probably because for modeling activity flow logic it is more expressive than EPC and a better match to the webMethods engine. Of course EPC has lots of other info in it besides activity flow logic. The SAP angle was something they brought up, as ARIS is heavily used in SAP shops and has the reference models built in. How SAP views the relationship now that ARIS seems to “favor” webMethods is anyone’s guess.
Would you say that Software AG is still aiming ARIS to be an independent BPA suite, even after the acquisition?
Yes I think so. But this is always the problem when a runtime company buys a tools company, since the runtime business is typically much bigger. Usually the tool eventually becomes “captive” to the runtime, but ARIS is in a special position, so that may take longer, or not happen at all.
Having started a new project on the very fresh Software AG’s webMethods 8.2 platform I can tell you the role of BPMN 2.0 in process modelling and automation offers a much wanted stable reference and ease of description and detail than older (pre-BPMN 1.1) versions did.
As I am only involved in the BPM aspects of the project, right now I can’t say more about ARIS integration but I’ll report about in the future.
Hi Bruce,
Why do you mention SAP in your story. It’s hard to understand the link between both vendors in a BPM context.
I even believe that there is in fact no added value in this combination.
The old Aris content is hardly used in a SAP/BPM context, and in cases where it could be useful a lot of extra work is needed.
Keep Aris content separated from your the actuel execution model. But use it as a reference and not as a starting point (BPMN-I)
I mentioned the SAP connection because Software AG did in the announcement, and also as ARIS has long had a strong connection to SAP.
well ARIS was built initially looking SAP Model and is used primarily in SAP shop. So not sure why the context of SAP with ARIS or even webmethods is in question since there existence OF these will be challenged without SAP.
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