Sep
28
2009
Is CEP a subset of BPM?
Posted by Paul Vincent
At EPTS5 last week, a 2nd vendor proclaimed that CEP was merging with BPM (as a technology). So lets check this claim out against Connie Moore (Forrester analyst)’s recent blog post on “When to use a BPM Suite” and see how this compares to a CEP tool like TIBCO BusinessEvents (which we have previously compared with its TIBCO BPM+ cousins).
Connie gives the following indicators for readiness for a “BPM suite”:
- Processes change frequently.
That’s an interesting one. BPMN is the preferred model for processes, and it is a good way of documenting processes. And in model-driven BPM, you can elaborate a BPMN model with IT artifacts and thence generate appropriate automation.
However, another trick is to use dynamic process models - typically rule-driven or plan-driven, and both event-driven. So CEP tools libe BusinessEvents are at least as good for “changing processes” with the slight caveat that the type of change is significant: pre-ordained dynamic processes, or just good old manual changes by a business analyst?
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents uses rules and state models to define (event) processing, as well as managed decisions. - Automate and monitor processes across the “value chain”.
Monitoring capabilities may be built-in at the BPM level, but usually you want to monitor processes against external metrics (like your SOA services, external events, etc). That’s a role for CEP.
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents can model a value chain as a state model, and correlate events in various ways to support business activity monitoring - including monitoring BPM. - Support cross-functional processes.
This is the “enterprise view” of BPM. Probably its true to say that CEP technologies have few enterprise modeling aspirations.
E.G. I have no “organization model” for example in TIBCO BusinessEvents, although I can usually define the appropriate metamodel as concepts, and enjoy full flexibility in how that interacts with events and rules and decisions… - Allow monitoring of status of work in progress.
CEP *does* allow for long-running stateful processes - and “self monitoring” is quite common - but again this is a general capability not an out-of-the-box fixed feature.
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents can query continuously the attributes of entities it is processing, and deliver the results, as they change, as events. - Extend the life of legacy apps.
The message here is that BPM can layer on existing apps (/ services). The same is true for CEP, which can invoke and control existing applications just as well.
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents can invoke services in TIBCO ActiveMatrix and BusinessWorks… - Collect work metrics or SLAs.
Metrics: event counters. SLAs: rules. CEP: check.
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents provides rules to operate against events, and detect when, for example, SLAs are trending to be breached… an example of SOA SLA is the TIBCO SPM product based on CEP. - Improve inaccurate, inconsistent or laborious manual work.
OK, CEP is not a workflow monitor or manager (although rule-driven workflows applications have been done). CEP is mostly about automated processes, or monitoring events from manual processes.
E.G. you could implement a state model for workflow queue handling in TIBCO BusinessEvents, but most people prefer to use the out-of-the-box variant from a BPM tool. - Capture process knowledge.
This comes down to documenting (fixed) processes in BPMN. Fine and dandy, but decision knowledge and inferred knowledge are missing. Some CEP tools can help fill this gap.
E.G. TIBCO BusinessEvents provides inference rules for deeper knowledge chains (think Zachmann “what” rather than “how”).
So: “CEP as a part of BPM” is not a slam dunk by the current narrow view of business processing. CEP augments and provides capabilities that help in BPM, but also provides other capabilities (BAM, operational intelligence, …). BPM 3.0? BPM+? edBPM? We’ll see.
Tags: BPM
Complex Event Processing (CEP) | 28 September 2009 |
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By Scott Francis, September 28, 2009 @ 21:13
I can’t understand saying CEP is a “subset” of BPM. This is sort of like the “is BPM part of SOA or SOA part of BPM?” arguments I often see. I think they’re two different technologies that have some incidental overlap and which have mostly complementary usage - your organization will likely be better off if you have both a CEP capability and a BPM capability and SOME of your projects/processes will leverage both capabilities…
One note on SLAs: sometimes these are singular ( a loan must be processed in 30 days) and sometimes aggregate (we have to be on-time 80% of the time), and sometimes a combination. So, when you say SLA’s are addressed by rules it depends on what kind of rules are employed, and what kinds of consequences should be employed when an SLA is violated or in danger of being violated.
Great summation of the points, Paul -
Scott
By Paul Vincent, September 28, 2009 @ 23:14
Hi Scott - fully agree - CEP technology is complementary to BPM (and SOA) technology, helping solve business problems. However, many pundits feel “BPM” is everything to do with business processes - hence in that view, everything in IT is pretty much (subsidiary to or a subset of) “wider BPM”.
On SLAs vs rules: yes, rules can be defined against the process entity (eg the time constraint) and against the combination of processes (eg departmental performance level, performance level of people in location Y, etc etc). And indeed, translating a SLA constraint into decision rules is an interesting mapping: I want to find out when I’ve broken the SLA, but sometimes I want a warning of how close I am to breaching it, etc.
Cheers
By Opher Etzion, September 29, 2009 @ 06:46
Hi Paul. I don’t see EP technology “merge” with BPM. Event processing may be used in different domains — in the EPTS symposium we also have session that talked about the use of event processing in IT management and in robotics, event processing is a generic technology that has life of its own, but can be embdedded in several different middleware or domain oriented framework. I certainly see event processing (in some way or another) becomes a standard part of BPM suites, as well as other suites.
By Paul Vincent, October 7, 2009 @ 01:44
Interesting comment on the BA vs BPMS discussion on linked in:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=7932497&gid=84758
Rich Weller, VP of Biz Opt at insurers CNA, commented:
A Business Process Management System or Suite (BPMS) provides the functionality to define, design, implement, and manage/monitor one or more sequenced Business Activities, Business Events, Business Objects/Data, Business Rules, Business Roles, and KPI’s.
That is a much bigger overlap with CEP than current BPMS technologies (ie BPMN-based tools) provide, IMHO…