Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation

Support Newsletter 17.0

Welcome to the seventeenth edition of Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation’s quarterly Technical Support Newsletter, covering the Interstage suite of products. This newsletter is aimed to update our existing customers, as well as our Fujitsu affiliates and business partners, on issues of interest to the technical support community. This edition continues the broadening of our focus from the Interstage Business Process Manager, to the entire Interstage Suite, and is organized into the following three sections:

1. Product News :

• A Format for Process Design Ecosystem
• Fujitsu IT Leadership Helps Shape Business Process Management Industry ---Fujitsu and Seagull Software Deliver SOA Management and Governance for Legacy Applications Through CentraSite™
• Fujitsu and IDS Scheer See Continued Global Demand for Complete Business Process Lifecycle Management Solution

2. Tech Section – Support Tips, Answers, and Technical Articles

3. Customer Feedback Survey

I hope you find this issue of our Support Newsletter to be a valuable and informative

Tool, as you continue to use Fujitsu’s Interstage Suite as a key component in your business operations.

 

Sandia Yang

Senior Manager, Customer Support
Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation
April 2nd, 2007

Editor’s Note

Requests For Additional Information

For additional information on the Fujitsu Interstage Suite, please contact your regional representative at Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation or email us at info@interstage.com. In addition, North American customers can request information via a toll-free line at (888) 248-9273

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Upcoming Interstage Business Process Manager Training Sessions

Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation conducts an Interstage Business Process Manager API Level Training Class every month at their corporate headquarters located in Sunnyvale, CA.  The schedule for training sessions for customers in North America is listed below. Please contact your regional sales representative for enrollment details.

Course Dates:

2007	Dates	Days	Times
April	17,18,19	Tuesday - Thursday	10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Daily
May	15,16,17	Tuesday - Thursday	10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Daily
June	19,20,21	Tuesday - Thursday	10:00 am - 4:00 pm, Daily

The other Interstage Business Process Manager courses that are available and that are scheduled based on demand include:

• Interstage Business Process Manager – Solution Architecture (for Business Partners)
• Interstage Business Process Manager – Administrators and Users
• Interstage Business Process Manager – Support Certification (for Business Partners)

If you would like to unsubscribe from this newsletter, or would like to provide Fujitsu with feedback, please e-mail me at:

vchandran@us.fujitsu.com.

Vivek Chandran

The Support Group</p> br>Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation
April 2nd, 2007 

1. Product and Marketing News

A. Format for Process Design Ecosystem

By Keith Swenson, Chief Architect and VP of R&D

The decade of the 90's was a time to get people to think about business in terms of a “process”.  We have been more successful than many thought possible.  No business analysts today would approach optimization of their business or organization without first considering the main processes involved.

Along with this change in thinking, comes a wide variety of software tools to help us to reach this end. Among modeling tools, there are high level corporate goal modeling tools, macro level production flow tools, and personal and workgroup oriented coordination tools, as well as a few systems that cover the complete range of modeling options.  Beyond modeling tools, there are also simulation tools, optimization tools, analytical tools, enactment tools, monitoring tools, documentation tools, conversion tools.  This is expected in a field that is rapidly growing. 

Different specialists in the organization will tend to use different tools that meet their specific needs.  We are hearing more now that people want these tools to interoperate.  They are no longer satisfied by starting from a blank sheet and entering everything in.  For example, someone may want to run simulations, but instead of drawing the process from scratch, they want to import a process from a process design tool.  Or they may be ready to implement a process application, and they want to start by importing the process from the high level modeling tool.  There is a clear need to be able to exchange process designs. 

The importance of process design interchange will increase as the market matures. Currently, without design exchange, a single vendor must supply all of the tools that an organization might use. There are many vendor-specific interchange formats.  Yet we are seeing more third party tools that add a particular specialize capability to a given process system.  One can imagine a kind of "Process Design Ecosystem" developing where different specialists use different tools, but they are able to share the results. 

The demand for an open non-proprietary process design interchange format comes from the recognition that there are many tools that exist, and different people will use different tools.  If you believe that the best tools will be provided by independent vendors, then an open non-proprietary format for process design interchange is the key ingredient to making this possible. 

The eXtensible Process Definition Language (XPDL) is a file format that is designed for exactly the purpose of exchanging process designs.  It is actually a third generation process language developed over the course of ten years by a collaboration of process vendors and users under the auspices of the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC).  The first version was called WPDL and was released in 1998.  About that time XML became popular, and the second version was called XPDL 1.0 which used XML to express slightly improved semantics released in 2002.  The advent of BPMN drove the third version which came out in Oct 2005 and contains the capability to express all the semantics of BPMN.  The growth over time represents an evolution of continual refinement based on things that had worked before.  It is not an offering from a single vendor trying to gain an edge in the market, but a collaboration of numerous vendors and users, and the fact that it has stood the test of time is evidence that it has what is needed. 

For a relatively unknown standard, it has a surprising number of products that implement it.  At last count close to three dozen key process technology vendors already support XPDL.  At the recent Shared Insights BPM conference inBoston(Nov 14-16 2006), I walked around the floor and verified that every vendor present, except for two, supported XPDL.  The official list is at the WfMC web site, but current supporters include:  Adobe, Advantis, BEA (Fuego), EMC (Documentum Workflow), IBM (FileNet), IDS Scheer (Business Architect), Fujitsu (Interstage BPM), Global 360 (Capevisions, eiStream), Oracle9i (Warehouse Builder), Pega Systems, Software AG (Crossvision BPM), TIBCO (Staffware), Vignette (Process Workflow Modeler), Zynium (Byzio) as well as many smaller vendors.  What is really interesting is the number of open source initiatives based on XPDL: Enhydra JaWE (editor), Enhydra Shark (engine), Open Business Engine, WfMOpen (engine).  A couple of Visio based process design tools support XPDL like ITPCommerce, and ITPearls; while Zynium offers its Byzio which can convert any Visio drawing to XPDL.  XPDL is also used by simulation vendors (e.g. Simprocess).  We are even seeing consulting firms standardizing on XPDL as they seek to gain more reuse from their collections of business process diagrams. 

Whenever you begin to talk about process oriented standards, the question always comes up about another process standard called Business Process Execution Language (BPEL, also know as WSBPEL and BPEL4WS).  Many people today automatically assume that BPEL and XPDL are direct competitors. This is not at all true. BPEL and XPDL are entirely different things for entirely different purposes. Many people today are disappointed by BPEL, but in fact BPEL does exactly what it set out to do, the amount of hype led many people to believe it did much more.  But first a quick summary of how XPDL and BPEL differ: 

BPEL is an "execution language". It is a programming language that has variables and operations. The operations can send and receive SOAP messages, and there is strong support for XML and XML transformation. It has constructs that make it easy to call multiple web services at the same time, and synchronize the results. It does not have any concepts to support the graphics of the diagram; activities do not have a position and size, and there is no need for a representation of an "arrow". 

XPDL is a process design format. It is a file format that represents the "drawing" of the process definition. It has X & Y coordinates and node size. It has a concept of lines, and points along the line that give it a particular path. The nodes and lines have attributes which can specify executable information such as roles, activity descriptions, timers, web service calls, etc. XPDL 2.0 contains extensions in order to be able to represent all aspects of BPMN (BP Modelling Notation). The goal is to be able to save and exchange the process diagram. 

The goal of BPEL is to provide a definition of web service orchestration, the underlying sequence of interactions, the flow of data from point to point. Ultimately BPEL is all about bits and bytes being moved from place to place and manipulated. It does not however attempt to represent the drawing that you used to specify the orchestration. 

The goal of XPDL is to store and exchange the process diagram. It allows one process design tool to write out the diagram, and another to read the diagram, and for the picture that you see to be as similar as possible. It does not, however, guarantee the precise execution semantics. As you see, BPEL and XPDL are entirely different things for entirely different purposes. 

The different usage is best represented the diagram below. At the top are various design level tools. At the bottom are execution environments. XPDL can be used to carry the design from design tool to design tool. BPEL, XPDL, or other formats might be used be used to communicate the executable process to the engine. Generally, a vendor specific design tool is necessary to translate the design into an engine specific format. Generally, it is not possible to take executable code from one vendor's design tool, and execute it in another vendor's engine. Even with BPEL, which many believe was for this purpose, does not at this time allow different engines to run identical copies of BPEL code (except in the simplest cases...). 

The XPDL file can provide this design interchange because it offers one-for-one representation of the original BPMN process diagram; it can be written, and re-read to recover the original diagram. BPEL, on the other hand is a non trivial mapping which is widely recognized as being one directional: you can take a BPMN diagram and produce BPEL, but it is difficult or impossible to recover the original BPMN diagram from the BPEL. This is not surprising since it was not designed for process design interchange. 

Process interchange is very important to customers who are investing a tremendous value in their process diagrams, but so is process archival.  I was asked recently in a presentation as to what format should be used by a business who wants to preserve their investment, and make sure that they store processes in a way that will be readable in the future.  The answer is clearly an XML format, and XPDL is the only existing file format that is XML and is today supported by dozens of vendors. 

You might ask, if BPEL does not manage to communicate the execution representation to various engines with complete fidelity, why then would we expect XPDL to exchange the process diagram with complete fidelity? The answer is simply that is does not need to. One design tool does not understand the output from another tool completely, but every design tool will understand the most important parts (the form and shape of the diagram) as well as many standard BPM attributes. Because the model is communicated from design tool to design tool, if the transfer is not perfect, you have a chance in the receiving tool to fix it up. Not perfect, but both useful and pragmatic. 

Not every tool needs to understand the complete diagram. A simulation tool for instance will use the standard parts of the diagram, but probably ignore things like the attributes that define web service calls, since simulation does not need to know this. 

One of the most important aspects of XPDL is the extensibility mechanism. Each tool has specialized requirements on the diagram, it can represent these using extended attributes. Other tools will not understand these extensions, but they will carry the extensions along. Thus a tool specialized to clean up the layout, might manipulate the graphical aspects of the model, and return a cleaned up model including all the extensions back to the original source without losing any information. Enhydra JaWE for instance is an open source XPDL editing tool has been publicly demonstrated to read an XPDL file from Fujitsu's Interstage BPM, edit, and return without loss of vendor specific extensions. JaWE even allows you to view and modify the extended attribute values. 

Some execution engines take XPDL directly. Fujitsu's Interstage BPM, Software AG's Crossvision BPM, and a number of open source engines do because they are workflow style BPM which represent human activities in such a way that they retain their identity even while executing.  That is the choice that a particular engine makes. One might assume that an engine that does mainly web service calls would prefer BPEL. 

What other standards exist beyond BPMN, XPDL and BPEL?  There are several other proposals for communication of process definitions.  One very interesting one is BPDM from OMG which hope to capture a common metamodel across all process definition formats.  An initial proposal for this was discussed at the OMG meeting in December 2006.  There is still some ways to go before an implementation is available from multiple vendors.  A new standard can be much cleaner internally than one that has had to respond to the real pressures of use in shipping products over the years, but then not many users will ever actually look at the internals of the format.  It will be interesting to see in a couple of years whether any process vendors have adopted this format. 

Today we see the beginnings of a "Process Design Ecosystem" where different specialists within an organization use different tools for different purposes; all around processes.  XPDL is here today; it is a proven format for process design interchange, already in use by dozens of popular process systems. 

B. Fujitsu IT Leadership Helps Shape Business Process Management Industry

By Amita Abraham, Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Workflow Management Coalition Appoints Keith Swenson as Vice Chairman (Americas) and Technical Committee Chairman, and Dave Hollingsworth as Technical Committee Chairman Emeritus 

SUNNYVALE, Calif., and HINGHAM, MASS. , February 13, 2007 — Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation and the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) today announced that Keith Swenson, Fujitsu Computer Systems’ vice president of research and development, has been appointed the WfMC’s vice chairman (Americas) and technical committee chairman, and Dave Hollingsworth, managing solutions architect, Fujitsu Services, Ltd., has been named technical committee chairman emeritus. Hollingsworth was also named the 2006 recipient of the WfMC’s prestigious Marvin L. Manheim Award.

As the only standards body focused exclusively on workflow and business process management, the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) has an aggressive agenda for 2007 focused on the growing adoption of its core standards XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) and Wf-XML, as well as to drive overall market awareness and implementation of workflow and BPM, through its on-going education programs and industry-wide collaborations.

“These appointments reflect the long-term involvement of Keith and Dave in helping to shape the business process management industry and find new ways for companies to use technology to make their businesses more efficient,” said Robert Sepanloo, senior vice president of the Enterprise Software and Solutions Group, Fujitsu Computer Systems. “We’re very proud of their work, and Fujitsu will continue to incorporate the standards developed by the WfMC to ensure our products continue to lead the industry in meeting the real-world challenges of our customers.”

Keith Swenson, WfMC Vice Chairman (Americas), Technical Committee Chairman

Keith Swenson’s accomplishments in the field of workflow include years of design innovation and major contributions to workflow industry standards. He presented the first Web Services proposal, called Simple Workflow Access Protocol (SWAP), which included concepts later integrated into a standard known as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) developed at W3C. He also helped propose and form the OASIS Asynchronous Service Access Protocol Technical Committee (ASAP TC), has chaired working groups at the Workflow Management Coalition, is involved in the development of standards such as Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF) and XPDL, and was part of the technical committee for the Object Management Group (OMG) workflow interface effort. A recognized authority on workflow technology, Keith is a published author and featured speaker at industry conferences.

“Keith’s role in defining and promoting process-based standards has led to significant industry developments and to direct benefits for the users of business process management products,” said Nathaniel Palmer, Executive Director, WfMC. “The WfMC is grateful for his continued contributions.”

“Business process management and the work of the Workflow Management Coalition has never been more relevant to the needs of businesses that want to design their next-generation infrastructures with a comprehensive understanding of how those infrastructures will support existing business processes and allow them to adapt to new challenges with greater efficiency,” said Swenson. “The next few years will be very exciting as companies begin to leverage their investments in service-oriented architectures to design standards-based, highly adaptable business process workflows.”

Dave Hollingsworth, WfMC Technical Committee Chairman Emeritus

Following more than a decade of tireless work with the WfMC, Dave Hollingsworth has been recognized with a lifetime title of WfMC Technical Committee Chairman Emeritus. He was also selected as the 2006 recipient of the WfMC’s prestigious Marvin L. Manheim Award for his contributions to industry initiatives on workflow architecture and standards. Among his many contributions, Dave was the primary author of the Workflow Reference Model. First released in 1995, it remains today the most widely-adopted model for commercial workflow and BPM software, and has heavily influenced other areas of technology.

Dave has been a leading contributor to all WfMC working groups, as well as to numerous other industry initiatives. He continues to encourage the development and adoption of open standards. In his role as Technical Committee Chairman Emeritus he will continue to shape and influence the industry-leading work of the WfMC.

“Dave’s contribution to the work and advancement of the Workflow Management Coalition is second to none,” said Jon Pyke, Chairman, WfMC. “From the early days when he formulated the now standard reference model, which shaped the direction of the Coalition, to his seminal work titled Reference Model 10 Years On, Dave has been in the thick of it. He has made a truly outstanding contribution to the advancement of the WfMC and process understanding, and we have much to thank him for.”

“Watching the maturation of the Workflow Management Coalition and the business process management industry has been extremely gratifying,” said Hollingsworth. “But I believe we are really just getting started. Over the next few years, new technologies and standards will completely reshape the large enterprise, enabling people to get more done in less time and shift more of their attention to delivering better products and services.”

About The Workflow Management Coalition

Founded in August 1993, the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is a non-profit, global organization of adopters, developers, consultants, analysts, and university/ research groups engaged in business process management (BPM). Workflow, or BPM, technology enables people to do their jobs with greater efficiency, traceability, and quality.
WfMC creates and contributes to process-related standards and educates the industry on the benefits of process automation. WfMC is the only standards organization that concentrates purely on process. WfMC created XPDL and Wf-XML and had influence on BPMN, OMG workflow interface, ASAP, and many other process-related standards. In 2006, over 600 individuals across Asia, Europe and theU.S. participated in the WfMC's workshops and training programs. Expanding on this, it will be holding programs and meetings throughout nearly a dozen countries and before an audience of over 1,000 business process professionals in 2007.

About Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) committed to the design, development and delivery of advanced computer systems, application infrastructure software products, and managed services for the business enterprise. Through its TRIOLE^® strategy, the company offers a complete line of scalable and reliable servers, storage and middleware solutions, high-performance mobile and client computers, as well as professional services. Fujitsu Computer Systems has established itself as a strategic solutions provider to the world’s leading organizations by offering technology innovation, customer choice, exceptional product quality and reliability, as well as outstanding customer service. See http://us.fujitsu.com/computers for further information. To learn more about the Interstage Suite, visit http://www.fujitsu.com/interstage.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace. Pace-setting device technologies, highly reliable computing and communications products, and a worldwide corps of systems and services experts uniquely position Fujitsu to deliver comprehensive solutions that open up infinite possibilities for its customers' success. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of about 4.8 trillion yen (US$40.6 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2006. See http://www.fujitsu.com for further information.

About IDS Scheer in the Americas

With the ARIS Platform, IDS Scheer is the leading provider of solutions for business process excellence. The company’s ARIS-based solutions offer a complete portfolio for “Business Process Excellence,” including the software, services and methods to address all phases of the business process lifecycle: strategy, design, implementation, controlling, documentation, and continuous improvement. From small/medium enterprises to Global 1000 organizations, IDS Scheer provides solutions to help customers optimize their investments in Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Architecture (EA), Corporate Performance Management (CPM), and Compliance Management. As part of an organization of more than 2,500 employees worldwide in more than 70 countries with more than 6,000 customers, IDS Scheer’s 2005 revenues reached $386.4 million USD/318 million Euro. IDS Scheer was established in 1984 by August-Wilhelm Scheer, widely recognized as a founding father of Business Process Management. For more information on IDS Scheer in the Americas, http://www.ids-scheer.com/us.

The release can be found at: http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/software/interstage/wnew/pr021307.html

C. Fujitsu and Seagull Software Deliver SOA Management and Governance for Legacy Applications Through CentraSite™

By Amita Abraham, Sr Product Marketing Manager

 Ability to Expand the Use of Legacy Assets within and across Enterprises with the Industry’s Only Vendor-Neutral SOA Registry and Repository

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and ATLANTA, February 27, 2007 — Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation, a leader in business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA), and Seagull Software, a leading provider of high-performance software solutions that transform legacy business applications into SOA assets, today announced that CentraSite™ integrates seamlessly with LegaSuite®, the company’s flagship product, and under a cooperative marketing program agreement Seagull Software can refer CentraSite to customers through its various channels. CentraSite is the industry’s only vendor-neutral, standards-based SOA registry and repository. 

In September, Seagull Software announced it had become a strategic sponsor of the CentraSite Community, and the referral agreement and integration are the first steps resulting from that sponsorship. The integration of CentraSite with LegaSuite means that companies creating an SOA can expose their legacy assets to their entire corporate development community, as well as the global development community, through a centralized registry and repository that provides improved analysis and control of SOA resources and activities, promotes the reuse of services, accelerates SOA projects, and enhances the quality of a SOA. Fujitsu and Seagull Software are among 22 sponsors that contribute to the CentraSite Community to help organizations successfully design, implement, manage, govern, and optimize an SOA. The CentraSite Community, which also serves as an SOA thought leadership portal, can be accessed at www.CentraSite.com. 

“This collaboration integrates two pieces of the puzzle that are critically important to the SOA strategy of every enterprise that relies on domain-rich legacy applications,” said Don Addington, CEO and president of Seagull Software. “LegaSuite enables companies to use their legacy applications as services in a next-generation infrastructure. CentraSite enables these services to be effectively managed and made available for reuse. The clear benefit for customers is that as they build out their SOA infrastructure, they can minimize the risk in migrating to a SOA environment by maximizing the reuse of their proven, legacy applications. ” 

“The integration of CentraSite with LegaSuite provides Seagull Software customers with a solution for effectively managing their growing number of SOA assets, while also giving them immediate access to the CentraSite Community and the SOA assets and skill sets of other CentraSite Community Sponsors,” said Robert Sepanloo, senior vice president of the Enterprise Software and Solutions Group, Fujitsu Computer Systems. “Our partnership illustrates the benefits of the CentraSite strategy and the CentraSite Community model. By encouraging vendor collaboration, we are creating solutions that remove complexity and the risks involved in migrating from legacy applications to modern, SOA environments. This helps expand market adoption of SOAs and accelerates individual SOA projects.” 

Seagull Software plans to offer a CentraSite Jump Start Program to allow customers to immediately begin exploring the benefits of putting their SOA assets into CentraSite and to experience the standards-based, seamless integration between the products. For more information on the CentraSite Jump Start Program, please contact Seagull Software at info@seagullsoftware.com.

Availability

The integration of LegaSuite with CentraSite is available immediately.

About LegaSuite

LegaSuite is the key that unlocks SOA value in legacy applications. With LegaSuite, enterprises can expose legacy business processes as SOA services that are easily registered in CentraSite. Transforming legacy applications into SOA assets—quickly, securely, and with no coding—is Seagull Software’s specialty. LegaSuite can be found in mission-critical production use in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, logistics and government projects.

About CentraSite

CentraSite offers maximum visibility into an SOA by providing a central registry and repository of SOA metadata, along with analysis of this data and the ability to incorporate centralized policies. This level of visibility and analysis enables organizations to minimize the risk of business disruption associated with transitioning their infrastructures to an SOA. It creates an environment for improved governance by enabling organizations to store, track, and analyze processes and their underlying services, including interdependencies, resulting in greater business agility and cost effectiveness. CentraSite has been openly designed for complete loosely coupled integration with Fujitsu Interstage® Suite of software products, Software AG’s crossvision SOA suite, and solutions from CentraSite Community Sponsors and other top-tier SOA solution providers. For more information, visit http://www.CentraSite.com

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About Seagull Software

Seagull Software specializes in technology that transforms “legacy” applications into SOA-compliant Web services, helping enterprises achieve exponentially faster IT support for business change, governance and compliance. Our LegaSuite® software platform includes integration, GUI, BPM and terminal emulation technology. With LegaSuite, customers connect legacy applications on IBM mainframe, ICL mainframe, iSeries, UNIX/VT and Windows client/server platforms to the Web, to other middleware and to newer-generations of applications such as portals, CRM and SCM. LegaSuite is based on open standards including Web services, XML, J2EE and .NET. Powerful and innovative tools require no coding, which means rapid results, reduced risk and no maintenance burden. Committed to providing the best customer experience in the industry, Seagull Software’s technology is in use in more than 8,000 business and government organizations worldwide, and by millions of end users. Seagull Software has direct operations in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, UK, France, Swedenand Germany, supplemented by distributors serving approximately 30 additional countries. For more information, visit http://www.seagullsoftware.com. 

D. Fujitsu and IDS Scheer See Continued Global Demand for Complete Business Process Lifecycle Management Solution

By Amita Abraham, Sr Product Marketing Manager

Joint Offering to be Demonstrated at ARIS ProcessWorld 2007 on Amelia Island, Florida

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and BERWYN, Penn. , Feburary 6, 2007 — Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation and IDS Scheer today announced continued worldwide adoption by leading financial services institutions of their collaborative business process lifecycle management solution. The integrated Fujitsu-IDS Scheer solution will be showcased during ARIS ProcessWorld, February 7-9, 2007, on Amelia Island, Florida. 

“Our joint solution continues to see strong adoption in the financial services industry, including one of the five largest banks in theU.S., and one of the most highly regarded leaders in wealth management, investment banking, and asset management,” said Dr. Mathias Kirchmer, chief innovation and marketing officer at IDS Scheer. “Together, Fujitsu and IDS Scheer enable customers to deploy a complete business process lifecycle management solution that optimizes their business processes to improve operational efficiency and gain a competitive advantage.” 

The joint offering combines Fujitsu Interstage® Business Process Manager with IDS Scheer ARIS Business Architect™ for business process design and ARIS Process Performance Manager™ (ARIS PPM) for business process monitoring and analytics. The solution enables financial services institutions to orchestrate complex workflows involving humans and IT systems across multiple departments, empowering effective collaboration across the entire organization. All processes remain transparent and allow for real-time and historic reporting of performance management statistics, including dashboard-based monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs); automated identification of patterns, trends, and bottlenecks; comprehensive process metrics reporting; and full and comprehensive audit trails. 

“By combining the industry’s best tools into a complete business process lifecycle management solution, Fujitsu and IDS Scheer help our joint customers ensure agility, flexibility, efficiency, competitiveness, and optimum ROI on their IT investments,” said Robert Sepanloo, senior vice president of the Enterprise Software and Solutions Group, Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation.

Fujitsu Interstage Business Process Manager

Interstage Business Process Manager is part of the Fujitsu Interstage Suite – a broad family of modular, real-time software products that gives companies the capability to build flexible and scalable solutions. The Fujitsu Interstage Suite is implemented in more than 8,000 companies, representing more than 175,000 installations worldwide. Interstage Business Process Manager is a full-featured, comprehensive business process management solution designed to improve the productivity and profitability of businesses by providing companies with the ability to create, control, change and measure processes and related activities with flexibility and ease. In addition, process rules and logic can be modified, coordinated and controlled.

A. Latest Supported builds for Interstage Business Process Manager

• Studio v7.4 Build 36 (Win)
• Decision Tables v7.4 Build 08 (Win, Solaris, Linux, AIX)
• Advanced Edition v7.4 Build 77  (Win, Solaris, Linux)
• Advanced Edition v7.1 Build 361  (AIX)
• Advanced Edition v7.1 Build 361  (HP)
• Enterprise Edition Weblogic 8.1.4 v7.4 Build 25 (Win, Solaris,  AIX)
• Enterprise Edition Weblogic 9.1 v7.4 Build 49 (Win)
• Enterprise Edition Websphere 5.1.1.3 v7.4 Build 20 (Win)
• Enterprise Edition Websphere 6.1 v7.4 Build 56 (Win)
• Enterprise Edition Websphere 6.0.0.1 v7.4 Build 94 (SuzeLinux)
• Entry Edition v7.0 Build 187  (Win)

Fixpacks

• Advanced Edition v7.1 Build IF710350, FixPack 9.
• Advanced Edition v7.3 Build IF730076, FixPack 3.
• Advanced Edition v7.4 Build IF740077, FixPack 1.
• Enterprise Edition v7.4 (WebSphere) Build IF740065, FixPack 1.

NOTE : Details of the FixPack are logged in our Online Support Tool-ServiceWise. Each FixPack is listed as a KnowledgeBase article. Please log an incident to request the required FixPack.

B. Frequently Asked Questions

Interstage Business Process Manager has been available since 1998. Over time, we have received various technical queries from customers, evaluators, partners and affiliates regarding the installation, integration, and usage of Interstage Business Process Manager. In this section we cover some of our frequently asked questions. We hope that this will help answer some of the questions you may have to help release your Interstage Business Process Manager-powered application faster.

Error Messages

Q1.  How can I resolve the following errors thrown in the client machine-

"i-Flow failed to create the adapter for push notification mechanism"

Error thrown in client machine "Port already in use: 0; nested exception is: java.net.BindException: Address already in use" ?

A1.  Comment out the RMIExPort in ibpm.properties file, typically found in {IBPM install dir}\bin directory.  Prior to Interstage Business Process Manager v7.3 AE, ibpm.properties was named as twf.ini and is also located in {IBPM install dir}\bin directory. 

If there is firewall in between the Business Process Manager server and the client machine where the symptom is shown, do not comment out RMIExPort.  In this case, only one client can be run from each client machine to connect to the Business Process Manager server.

Q2. Interstage Business Process Manager installation fails due to InstallShield null value error. How can I fix this?

A2. To resolve the InstallShield null value exception, perform the following steps:

Step 1:  Remove all contents under "C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Universal\common" directory.

Step 2:  Delete entry similar to 'Interstage Business Process Manager...' under Windows registry -- "My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\".

Note: Windows Registry can be started from start > run > enter regedt32.exe

Step 3: Launch Business Process Manager installer.

Unable to abort erroneous process

Q3. API com.fujitsu.iflow.model.workflow.ProcessInstance.abort() only works against running processes. How can I abort erroneous process?

A3. This is a workaround solution to abort erroneous process by putting them back into running state, prior to the abortion.

Note : One may need to apply the patch to avoid error for certain builds when running this program. For example, FixPack2 is required for AE v7.3 build IF730076. 

Below are the steps to move a process from error state back to running state:

Step 1:  put process in structural edit mode.

Step 2:  add a dummy node that follows start node.

Step 3:  remove all arrows between start node and the nodes that follow.

Step 4:  add one arrow instance between start node and the dummy node.

Step 5:  add all arrows between dummy node and the nodes that used to follow start node.

Step 6:  activate start node, which will bring process back to running state.

Step 7: commit structural edit.

The program IBPMProcessManager.java serves as a reference implementation.  It will allow aborting a given process ID that is in error state.  Pay attention to method putProcessInRunningState(ProcessInstance pi).

The program requires 5 arguments,

C. KnowledgeBase Article

1. How to query the Interstage Business Process Manager Database?

Solution

The Interstage Business Process Manager database schema is published in the documentation - Appendix D Database Schema· of the Administration Guide.
For querying Business Process Manager database, either use Query Analyzer Tool in SQL Server or Oracle SQL Plus in Oracle. The following SQL queries can be used to get process definition or process instance or activity information.

1. Get specific process definition information
SELECT * FROM PROCESSDEFINITION WHERE PROCESSDEFINITIONID=;

2. Get the name and id of all templates in draft status
SELECT LABEL, PROCESSDEFINITIONID FROM PROCESSDEFINITION WHERE STATE=0;

3. Get specific process instance information
SELECT * FROM PROCESSINSTANCE WHERE PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

4. Get all process instances that are created from a specific process definition
SELECT * FROM PROCESSINSTANCE WHERE PROCESSDEFINITIONID=;

5. Retrieve history information for a specific process instance.
SELECT * FROM HISTORY WHERE PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

6. Get all the users who have acted on a process.
SELECT DISTINCT RESPONSIBLE FROM HISTORY WHERE PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

7. Get the creation and the completion time of a specific process instance
SELECT CREATEDTIME, CLOSEDTIME FROM PROCESSINSTANCE WHERE PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

8. Get all active processes instance ids.
SELECT * FROMPROCESSINSTANCEWHERESTATE = 7;

9. Get all processes that are sub processes.
SELECT * FROM PROCESSINSTANCE WHERE PARENTID != -1;

10. Get all activities for a given process instance.
SELECT * FROM ACTIVITYINSTANCE WHERE PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

11. Get all activity instance ids, activity labels and assigned roles for a specific process instance.
SELECT AI.ACTIVITYINSTANCEID, AD.LABEL, AD.ACTIVITYROLE FROM ACTIVITYINSTANCE AI, ACTIVITYDEFINITION AD WHERE AD.ACTIVITYDEFINITIONID=AI.ACTIVITYDEFINITIONID AND AI.PROCESSINSTANCEID=;

13. Get the process instance id, template id and process owner for a specific process
SELECT PS.PROCESSINSTANCEID, PS.PROCESSDEFINITIONID, PIO.OWNER FROM PROCESSINSTANCE PS, PROCESSINSTANCEOWNER PIO WHERE PS.PROCESSINSTANCEID= AND PS.PROCESSINSTANCEID = PIO.PROCESSINSTANCEID ;

14. Get all UDA values for a process instance.
Data field in the DataSetDefinitionValues table holds UDA values for a particular process instance id. In order to conserve space on the database, the data field is stored in a compressed image format using the user defined data type udObject. A direct result of storing data in this format is that it is difficult to retrieve this data from the database using standard SQL queries. It can also be retrieved using the Java API that once again handles the required conversions.

 

2. Interstage Business Process Manager support for HTTP in addition to default Weblogic T3 protocol

Following are the instructions for Interstage Business Process Manager support for HTTP protocol in addition to default Weblogic T3 protocol

1) Using the Weblogic Application Server console, enable tunneling. The following screen shot indicates how tunneling can be enabled.

2) Change the provider URL in Taskmanager.conf file located in the folder, \taskmanager\iflowjsp and restart the Business Process Manager server.

     NamingProviderURL=t3://:49950

            to 

     NamingProviderURL=http://:49950

    JmsNamingProviderURL=t3://:49950

         to 

    JmsNamingProviderURL=http://:49950

3) The support for HTTP in addition to default Weblogic T3 can be tested using Business Process Manager Client browser or standalone java application developed using ModelAPI. Run a test that involves creation of a new process definition.

4) Some loss in performance due to HTTP tunneling is expected.

 3. Customer Feedback Survey 

• Approximately how many requests for Support have you initiated in the past year?  ___________ 
• How satisfied have you been with the response timeliness?
  (Very Satisfied = 5; 4; 3; 2; 1 = Not Satisfied)  _____________
• How satisfied have you been with the solutions or bypasses provided? 
  (Very Satisfied =5; 4; 3; 2; 1 = Not Satisfied)  ______________
• Please note any suggestions you have on how we can improve our Support offering or process.  _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
• Please note any suggestions you have on how we can improve Interstage BPM as an offering or product. _________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

Configuration Information (optional)

Company Name: ________________________________________________

Operating Environment:  __________________________________________

Version of Interstage Business Process Manager used: ____________________________________

Production or Test? ______________________________________________

Please e-mail your response to InterstageSupport@us.fujitsu.com .

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