This chapter discusses the AIA Reference Process Models delivered with an Oracle Application Integration Architecture Release.
Refer to My Oracle Support note 824633.1 titled Oracle Application Integration Architecture 2.0.1 - 11gR1x: List of Delivered Reference Process Models for a complete list of models delivered with an AIA release.
This chapter includes the following sections:
Business Process Management (BPM) includes a set of activities that organizations perform to either optimize their business processes or adapt them to new organizational needs.
Important elements include business process modeling and analysis (BPA), orchestration (BPEL), and business activity monitoring (BAM).
This guide focuses on the BPA element, outlines Oracle's approach and methodology, and describes the business process models delivered with an Oracle Application Integration Architecture Release.
Coordinating business processes is not simple or linear as might be portrayed in the world of traditional task management.
Business is constantly changing, messy, unordered and chaotic; work activities and tasks have to be processed in parallel.
Coordination requires the spawning and asynchronous execution of nested tasks and parallel activities.
And it is not just tasks that occur in parallel, but decision-making, distributed computation and the movement of information within the company and across the value chain.
The best way to understand how your business is running is to understand your processes.
The first step in doing that is to model your business processes.
Oracle has created and delivered business process models for those processes supported by Oracle Application Integration Architecture Releases. These business process models will enable you to see and understand how Oracle Application Integration Architecture provides application integration solutions for your business processes.
A business process is a set of coordinated tasks and activities, involving both human and system interactions, that will lead to accomplishing a set of specific organizational goals. Characteristics of business processes include the following:
Large, complex, long running
Widely distributed and customized
Dynamic
Automated
Both business and technical in nature
Cross boundaries within and between businesses
Dependent on and supportive of human intelligence and judgment
Difficult to recognize