VOSibilities

This week on CTO Tuesdays Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley presented how events are represented in BPMN 2.0 and BPEL.

I think you will find Michael’s explanation of BPMN 2.0 event notation especially valuable.

I have attached two versions of the recorded webinar to this post. The first is an iPod-formatted .m4v. Also attached to this post is a Windows Media format .wmv file.

We have also made signing up for CTO Tuesdays and accessing the replays much easier. You can always sign up for the upcoming session of CTO Tuesdays at http://www.activevos.com/ctot. Replays are always available at http://www.ctotuesdays.com. And, an RSS feed of the replays is available at http://www.ctotuesdays.com/feed.

 CTO Tuesdays #3: BPMN and BPEL events [43:57m]: Download (443)
 CTO Tuesdays #3: BPMN and BPEL events [43:57m]: Download (4469)

This week’s topic on CTO Tuesdays was an introduction to the new WS-HumanTask standard for workflow. In this informative session, Michael Rowley describes the importance of the new standard for workflow, how it separates tasks from processing and how WS-HumanTask enables human activities to be seen as services in a process application.

Attached to this post are three files. A PDF of the slides Dr. Rowley presented, an iPod-formatted .m4v file (which requires QuickTime or iTunes to be installed) and a more-or-less standard .avi file. The .avi is the larger of the two video files.

Due to a technical error (I didn’t press “show” on GoToMeeting), the first few minutes of the video show Michael’s slides, not the ones I am discussing. Since this is just an introduction, you won’t miss anything. I’ve put those “missing” slides into the .pdf file, so you can follow along if you want to.

We had a very lively panel discussion at the end of the presentation; I hope you’ll have the time to listen to the discussion that follows the presentation.

As always, we are very interested in your feedback, comments and topic suggestions.

One more note: you can always register for the upcoming CTO Tuesdays session by visiting http://www.activevos.com/ctot. We hope you join us for next week’s webinar.

 CTO Tuesdays #2: Introduction to WS-HumanTask [49:03m]: Download (8492)
 CTO Tuesdays #2: Introduction to WS-HumanTask [48:56m]: Download (1078)
 CTO Tuesdays #2: Introduction to WS-HumanTask: Download (298)

ActiveVOS and SoftConEx have announced that their products have been combined to deliver a revolution in airline ticketing workflow for distributors, business travel service companies and travel portals. Details are in the press release attached to this post.

 ActiveVOS BPM and SoftConEx Revolutionize Airline Ticketing: Download (357)

We are pleased to present the latest episode of Dana Gardner’s BriefingsDirect Analyst Insight. This time Dana talks with noted industry analyst Dave Linthicum about his new book on SOA and cloud computing.

We hope you enjoy this fascinating interview. Also, in case you’re interested, you can also access a white paper Dave recently wrote on SOA development tools here.

 

 BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Podcast #45: Dave Linthicum's new book on SOA and cloud computing [45:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2441)
 BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Podcast #45: Dave Linthicum's new book on SOA and cloud computing: Download (164)

At Gartner’s BPM Summit in October, ebizQ’s Peter Schooff talked with me (Alex Neihaus) and Active Endpoints CTO Michael Rowley about ActiveVOS 7.0 and its new BPMN 2.0 modeler. A link to the podcast is below and it is included in our podcast feed in the iTunes Store.

 

 eBizQ podcast:How BPMS Delivers Value to Today's Business [4:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (133)

We are very pleased to post the recording of the first episode of our new weekly webinar on BPM technology called CTO Tuesdays.

Every Tuesday, Active Endpoints’ CTO Michael Rowley, will present a topic of interest to BPM users. Our inaugural topic was an explanation of the meaning and uses of the BPMN 2.0 diamond symbol. If you are interested in learning BPMN 2.0 — or if you just want to brush up on some of the more advanced considerations in using this basic BPMN symbol — you will find this recording very instructive. Concepts are demonstrated in ActiveVOS 7’s new BPMN 2.0 modeler.

Attached to this post are two versions of the webinar: an iPod-formatted .m4v file our podcast subscribers will automatically receive and an H.264-encoded .avi file (which is much larger at about 113MB).

We welcome your input and suggestions for CTO Tuesdays. Contact us via email at editor at activevos dot com. Today, the best way to be notified of upcoming CTO Tuesdays is to be on our mailing list. And, the best way to get onto our mailing list is to download a trial of ActiveVOS. You can also register for upcoming CTO Tuesdays by clicking on the link in the right hand column of any interior page on www.activevos.com.

We are working hard on making registering for CTO Tuesdays easier. But because of the demand for education on topics like BPMN 2.0, we started the webinar series without waiting to dot all the “i’s” and cross all our “t’s.”

Update: You can now register for CTO Tuesdays by clicking the link in the right-hand column of any page on www.activevos.com except the home page. So, just navigate into the site a little and you’ll get a little reward: easy access to registration for CTO Tuesdays.

Updated update: You can now always register for the upcoming CTO Tuesdays at http://www.activevos.com/ctot.

We hope you enjoy this recording and that you will join us as your schedule permits for the live CTO Tuesdays every Tuesday at noon ET, 9am PT, 16:00 GMT (17:00 GMT after the end of US daylight savings time in November, 2009).

 

 CTOT #1: The BPMN diamond [39:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4595)
 CTOT #1: The BPMN diamond [39:30m]: Download (7398)

Well, it’s the day after our big push to liberate Oracle SOA Suite 11g users during Oracle “Open”World in San Francisco.

And I am almost at a loss of words to describe our experience and the effect we seemed to have had. But, I gotta try. Here are some semi-random comments.

We are extraordinarily grateful for IDG News reporter Chris Kanaracus’s story, which perfectly captured the reasons we stood on a street corner for two days to make sure people understand that alternatives to high costs and lock-in exist.

Our social media meetup was a great success…and a lot of fun. We shared photos and videos of the event. (Here’s a video of the main reason for the party. ) I kid you not, the coolest people are the people who you befriend first online and then have the pleasure of meeting in the real world.

On Tuesday, October 14, we were hit with a rain storm that dumped a month of rain on San Francisco in about six hours. In spite of the high winds and Biblical downpours, we persisted in our mission of liberation from Oracle SOA Suite 11g.

You can check out videos on our YouTube channel (you have to see…and I mean you really have to see — the video titled “In the rain”), see stills in our Flickr photostream and, for our podcast subscribers, I’ve enclosed a short iPod-formatted video in the RSS feed. There’s also an HD-version of the video, for those that want to “be there” with us. Both are attached to this post.

Finally, you might find Otis Maxwell’s post about our attack on SOA Suite interesting. Otis’s description of how he found our meetup is very interesting. He calls what we did “suitcasing.” I think it’s simpler: we poked Oracle in the eye…and people loved it.

In case you are one of the folks who didn’t get the cards we handed out with the 11 things to consider before using SOA Suite 11g, here’s an image:

As you can imagine, pulling something like this off takes planning and dedication. I want to thank Sonal Rajan and Leslie Minasian, both of Active Endpoints, and Pat Flanders for their hard work and dedication.

 Active Endpoints at Oracle "Open"World 2009 - iPod [6:10m]: Download (769)
 Active Endpoints at Oracle "Open"World 2009 - HD [6:10m]: Download (488)

Today, we are very pleased to announce another customer success story for ActiveVOS. Details are in the press release attached to this post.

This story is of particular note because we are showing ActiveVOS 7 this week at the Gartner BPM Summit. In this morning’s opening keynote, I listened as Janelle Hill and Jim Sinur described the benefits of BPM: speed, flexibility, responsiveness, business-owner-driven change, competitive advantage.

I was all smiles. See, I had the pleasure of interviewing the customer for this press release. As Janelle and Jim  described the possibilities of BPM — how it can fundamentally change businesses — I remembered the interview with TheWatchery.Com and our excitement when they told us that ActiveVOS had allowed them to make millions of dollars overnight because they could change their processes so quickly. I think this story embodies much of what we are hearing about at the BPM Summit.

 TheWatchery.Com makes time using ActiveVOS: Download (361)

Today, Active Endpoints is announcing a success story that we believe demonstrates the flexibility and capability of ActiveVOS and also makes us proud of the way the product has been used. As you can see in the press release attached to this post, ActiveVOS is being used to implement the business processes necessary to implement smart electrical grids in Scandinavia.

Building a smart grid means changing many of the core things a utility does that involve customers. It’s nitty-gritty operations like ordering new meters…getting them installed…making sure billing systems can handle customers who sell energy back to the grid and/or are interruptible.

We are very excited that ActiveVOS is BPMS has been chosen to help the global effort to become more energy-smart.

BTW, ActiveVOS 7 is now available for download.

 ActiveVOS BPMS Supports Deployment of Automatic Meter Management in Sweden: Download (404)

As we promised in part 1 of of our discussion on the new features in the ActiveVOS 7 BPMS, we are delighted to post part 2 of a conversation among me (Alex Neihaus), Luc Clément and Michael Rowley. In this second podcast, Michael and Luc cover topics that are of interest to enterprise architects, developers and operations staff. Topics include continuous development (including support for the open-source Hudson project) and new features in the BPMN designer that improve productivity and operational enhancements.

We hope you enjoy this podcast.

 

 VOSibilities podcast #37: ActiveVOS 7.0, part 2 [28:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1568)

We are very pleased to announce ActiveVOS 7.0. The full press release is attached to this post. You might also be interested in seeing our new screenshot tours, browsing detail about the new release’s features and reading What’s New in ActiveVOS 7.0.

 Active Endpoints announces ActiveVOS 7.0: Download (447)

As has become something of a tradition here at Active Endpoints, I recently sat down with CTO Michael Rowley and Sr. Director of Products Luc Clément to talk about ActiveVOS 7.0 from the perspective of two of the people who have been heavily involved in the design and development of this major release.

ActiveVOS 7.0 is a major release of the BPMS and contains many new innovative capabilities. In fact, our discussion of the new BPMN 2.0 design canvas and our new AJAX forms design capability which allows humans to become services in an orchestration was so interesting that we decided to cover other new features in an additional podcast so as to not run too long in this one.

Michael, Luc and I will record a part 2 covering those features soon. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this introduction to ActiveVOS 7.0 BPMN 2.0 design with BPEL execution and the discussion of how WS-HumanTask was implemented in an AJAX forms designer.

Update: As promised, we have posted part 2 of this discussion here.

 

 VOSibilities podcast #37: ActiveVOS 7.0, part 1 [27:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1518)

One of the hottest topics in enterprise computing today is the proper relationship between business users and IT. Our CEO, Mark Taber, blogged about one aspect of this important topic just yesterday. Also yesterday, Gartner’s Jim Sinur wrote a very compelling post asking additional questions about the proper relationship between IT and end users.

Today, we are pleased to make available a new white paper by well-known industry analyst Sandra Rogers which offers additional insight into this very question.

Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

Organizations are discovering that the use of more visual and self-documenting solutions can better ensure that requirements are commonly understood and agreed upon, and measure if certain business goals met. Utilizing BPMSs like ActiveVOS that help individuals capture current and future state, that are easier to use and allow for multiple and concurrent cycles while designing and enhancing business processes, can greatly impact overall results. The use of such technology that provides deeper transparency into one’s processes, enables the sharing of best practices, and allows business stakeholders building degrees of freedom in adjust application and process parameters can help bring all parties into further alignment.

We hope you enjoy Sandy’s paper.

 Aligning For a More Successful Business and IT Development Paradigm: Download (612)

ActiveVOS 7.0 is a major new release of the business process management system (BPMS) that development teams love. The document attached to this post gives an overview of new features in the release. The document discusses the new BPMN 2.0-compliant modeler with BPEL execution and no round-trip problems, a new AJAX capable services-based forms designer and ActiveVOS Central. ActiveVOS Central is a complete, out-of-the-box solution for managing work, accessing reports and graphs of system activity and creating processes. In addition, the document describes additional new features of the BPMS that improve productivity and enhance collaboration between an extended development team and end users.

This version is a draft of the What’s New in ActiveVOS 7.0 document. Please check back frequently for updated versions.

 What's New in ActiveVOS 7.0: Download (996)

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Michael Rowley, Active Endpoints CTO, will be presenting a talk on the Service Component Architecture (SCA) at the UCLA Java Users Group on Thursday, August 27, 2009. Details are in the media advisory attached to this post.

 Media Advisory: Rowley to present SCA at UCLA Java User's Group: Download (224)