IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Get started with IBM BPM > Key concepts > BPEL processes and human tasks > BPEL processes overview
Process instances
A process instance is the instantiation of a process template.
Business processes defined in Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) represent stateful web services, and as such, they can have long-running interactions with other web services. Whenever a BPEL process is started, a new instance of that process is created that can communicate with other business partners. An instance completes when its last activity completes, a terminate activity runs, or a fault occurs that is not handled by the process.
Many process instance properties are inherited from the corresponding process template. Others, such as the state of the process instance, are assigned and modified during the lifetime of the process instance. All of these properties are stored in the runtime database. They can be accessed using the Business Process Choreographer database views, such as the PROCESS_INSTANCE view or QUERY_PROPERTY view, or using query tables.
See
Related concepts:
BPEL process editor
Related reference:
Database views for Business Process Choreographer