Last month the Business Modeling and Integration Task Force of the Object Management Group (OMG) and the OMG Architecture Board recommended for adoption the BPMN 2.0 specification, which SAP developed jointly with IBM and other technology and service providers. BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) helps to bridge the gap between business and IT by providing one common business process notation. OMG is the standards organization that is the steward of the UML and BPMN standards.
BPMN 2.0 improves upon BPMN 1.2 with
- New graphical elements
- A metamodel that formalizes and extends the BPMN 1.2 metamodel
- Fully defined execution semantics for process orchestrations
- Expanded support for modeling of interactions (aka choreographies)
- Formalized visual model for BPMN diagram layout
- Interchange formats, for both the semantic model and visual model, enabling interoperability among different BPM modeling tools and platforms
The expertise and know-how that SAP contributed to BPMN 2.0 was gained through many years of work on BPM tools, execution platforms, and BPM-related standards. SAP adopted BPMN as its process modeling notation and is committed to support BPMN 2.0 in future releases of the NetWeaver BPM. For more information go to Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).
What is next? The OMG has chartered the OMG BPMN 2.0 Finalization Task Force. The focus of the Task Force will be on issues that arise during the first wave of implementations of the new specification.
