Developing business processes using IBM WebSphere Business Modeler and IBM Integration Designer
You can use IBM WebSphere Business Modeler and IBM Integration Designer to develop business processes.
The business analyst begins by modeling a process. The value of creating a business process model is that a nontechnical business analyst can capture the business view and requirements for a process.
If the model is created with IBM WebSphere Business Modeler, the business analyst can export a project interchange file with a project structure that is optimally suited for use with IBM Integration Designer. The projects can be directly imported into IBM Integration Designer. This direct transfer of information simplifies application development by shortening the time required to create a process application and ensuring the accurate communication of the business requirements for the application.
Tip: The business analyst can deploy models (for testing purposes) directly from IBM WebSphere Business Modeler without involving an application developer and IBM Integration Designer. See the IBM WebSphere Business Modeler documentation for details.
While an integration developer works with the application in IBM Integration Designer, at the same time the business analyst can continue to develop and refine the model using IBM WebSphere Business Modeler. IBM Integration Designer supports iterative development. The business analyst can export the revised process model, and it can be compared to the application in the development environment. The integration developer can accept changes completely or selectively.
Export often. If the business analyst exports artifacts on a regular basis, the integration developer can merge changes more easily. A number of routine modifications and additions to a process can generally be handled easily in a single export. However, changes with broad implications should be done in isolation.
For example, if the business analyst is renaming a data catalog containing a number of business items, an export should be performed before and after this change.
This iterative flow works the best if the business analyst and the integration developer can minimize the degree to which they both modify the same artifacts. The best pattern would be for the integration developer to build services and for the business analyst to use them. These services should be implemented and tested in their own modules. On the other side, the BPEL artifacts should be generated from the model. The integration developer should limit inline modifications to the generated BPEL artifacts to the programming that must be done in the integration environment, such as error handling and compensation. Adding additional BPEL activities to the flow of the process is generally better than modifying the generated activities. If the integration developer tries to radically restructure the business logic, that effort generally makes iterative development much more complex. Likewise, business objects for the process should be generated from the model. The integration developer would add mapping to transform the data for use with the service implementations.
The development team uses IBM Integration Designer to refine the process. They use IBM BPM to test and deploy the application.
During the integration process, the solution can be annotated to capture business performance information that can be monitored using IBM Business Monitor.
The following diagram shows how all these pieces fit together.
