BPML kick-start from System Architect

The new business process modelling language (BPML) 1.0 specification will be given a kick-start with its first implementation in a new release of System Architect enterprise modelling tool from Popkin Software.

BPML provides a formal approach to modelling end-to-end business processes. It also supports XML-based process definitions to help communication between multiple vendors' systems and modelling tools used for web services.

It is developed by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) organisation, a large consortium of vendors and users that includes IBM, Hewlett Packard (HP), BEA, Sun and SAP, and modelling tools companies Rational, Casewise and Popkin.

"[BPML] is critical to web services because it defines how partners collaborate together," said Martin Owen, Popkin Software EMEA consulting service manager. "How do you know whether the system is going to operate if you don't consider the end-to-end architecture?"

Popkin's System Architect (SA) integrates business processes, objects and data models to define an organisation's infrastructure. The company said a minor point release of SA incorporating BPML 1.0 would be issued before the end of the year, following the product's next major release (9.0) next month. SA retails for £3,500.

"BPML is desperately needed but it has been slow coming," said Tim Jennings, research production director at analyst Butler Group. "Integration is no longer an IT problem but a business issue. Businesses are beginning to think in terms of business processes instead of technical links."

Jennings said that some BPML specialists with their own proprietary tools had probably been reluctant to migrate to the new standard.

Along with Popkin's move, the rapid progression towards web services could help establish BPML as the standard of choice for modelling business processes.

The recently announced business process execution language for web services (BPEL4WS) initiative driven by IBM, BEA and Microsoft, uses semantically similar notation to BPML 1.0, sharing the same keywords.

Although at an early stage, BPEL4WS draft specification is the strong favourite to emerge as the standard for defining process flows through a series of web services. The BPMI organisation says it is working on possible convergence paths to give users a unified BPM stack.