the open source workflow technology for business applications
In this short blog post I want to talk about the concept of workflow engines and what they are really good for. A workflow engine is the most misunderstood concept in modern software development. Many developers still believe a workflow engine is simply the description of steps to go for getting a work done => the Work-Flow.
With version 4.2.0, the second minor release of Imixs-Workflow version 4 is now available. After the stability and performance improvements of version 4 were confirmed with the minor update 4.1, now the first feature update has been released. Imixs-Workflow 4.2 offers a number of additional features and technical improvements.
Version 4.2 offers some awesome new possibilities to model a business process with BPMN 2.0. This includes, for example, the modeling of conditional events. A conditional event can be used to evaluate the output of an event during the processing life-cycle. The conditions can be easily added into the output flows.
The business rules can be written in JavaScript or any script language supported by the JVM. E.g ’JavaScript or ‘Groovy’.
Another modelling improvement are the so called “Split-Events”. A Split-Event can be used to create new versions of the current process instance during the current processing life-cycle.
A Split-Event creates a new version of the current process instance that can be immediately processed in parallel or stored in an archive state.
These new functions make modeling business processes more transparent and clearer.
The Imixs-Workflow engine provides now an observer pattern based on a set of CDI events. The events are fired when a process instance is loaded or updated. The observer pattern is part of the Java Enterprise Specification and can be used to adapt the behavior of workflow functionality in a powerful way. For example, the new archive feature adapts the persistence mechanism of Imixs-Workflow to transparently archive business data into various external archive systems.
The project provides now a new Simulation Engine to be used to simulate the outcome of a concrete process instance based on a BPMN 2.0 model. This can be used in test- as also in production mode and enhances the test functionality of Imixs-Workflow. A lot additional improvements in JUnit tests are also part of this update.
All these additional functions increase the stability of Imixs-Workflow and allow developers the creation of highly scalable business applications. Find all release notes on GitHub.
We have now started the migration of the Imixs Workflow sources from Subversion to Git. In the past all sources of the Imixs Workflow Project were available on java.net. But now we started the migration to GitHub. This will make it easier for the community to join the project.
In addition we also plan to reorganize the Maven Project structure from a single project structure to a multi-module structure. The reasons for this step are a new deployment plan for the maven artifacts. With the multi-module structure we can simultaneity release all parts of Imixs Workflow. This was also made in the past. But with the new structure we can simplify the maven release process.
Imixs Software Solutions GmbH presents with the Open Source project “Imixs Workflow” a Business Process Management (BPM) solution for Glassfish and JBoss Application Servers. Glassfish and JBoss are open source application servers based on the Java EE specification. These server platforms are widely-used by a lot of small and medium companies. The Imixs JEE Workflow components can be seamlessly integrated into Glassfish 2.1, 3.0 and JBoss 5.0 and 6.0 infrastructure. Thus the project provides a highly scalable and robust BPM solution. The Imixs workflow project makes use from the powerful component framework provided by the Java EE specification. All Imixs Workflow Java EE components are implemented as Enterprise Session and Entity EJBs. This makes it very easy to integrate these components in a new or existing enterprise software project. Continue reading “BPM SOLUTION FOR GLASSFISH AND JBOSS”
One of the most important advantages of the Imixs Workflow Engine is the fact that Imixs Workflow is based on the Java Enterprise Plattform (Java EE). A Java EE application server can handle transactions, security, scalability, concurrency and management of the components that are deployed to it. So all the features and characteristic from the Java EE plattform are also part of Imixs Workflow. Here are some examples: Continue reading “THE ADVANTAGE OF BPM SOLUTIONS BASED ON JAVA EE”