bonita j2ee workflow cooperative system miguel valdés faura jiap project 09/12/2003

BonitaJ2EE Workflow Cooperative

System

Miguel Valdés Faura

JIAP Project

09/12/2003

Agenda

• Bonita project introduction

• Basic organisation

• Awareness

• Advanced features

• Web services

• Bonita integration

• Current work

Bonita Project• Flexible Cooperative Workflow System

• Bonita is integrated in the ObjectWeb Consortium (Open Source Middleware).

• Bonita is Open Source and is downloadable in LGPL License.

• Bonita uses new JOnAS 3.3.1 version.

Short History• Started in 2000 inside the Motu Cooperative

plateforme• June 2001

– Beginning of development of version 1• Ejb 1.1

• June 2002– Development of version 2

• Ejb 2.0, CMP

• June 2003– Integration in the libresource platform– Port to Jonas

Context (1)• Types of workflow

– Production– Administrative– Ad-hoc– Cooperative

• Workflow Management System that allows coordination in a cooperative project

– co-engineer, co-conception...

Context (2)• Existing Workflows

– Isolation execution– Sequential execution

– Rigid model

EditionEdition

CorrectionCorrection

EditionEdition

MergeMerge

EditionEdition

ReviewReview

CorrectionCorrection

CommentsComments

Context (3)• Bonita offers a new workflow execution

model:– Execution flexibility based on activity

anticipation.– Interchange data flexibility

Edition Modification

Edition Review Mofification

Edition Review

Modification

...

Process

Execution

(1)

(2) Anticipating

Anticipable

Executing

Review

Objectives of Bonita

Supporting collaborative processes– Long running activities– Distributed teams coordination– Awareness

• Provide a WF engine– Simple– Dynamic– Flexible

Bonita J2EE Application

• EJB 2.x compliant and xdoclet code generation engine.

• User Authentication by Login Modules• JMS notification module• Web Interface with Struts framework, JSP and

JSTL pages• Different databases MySQL, Postgres...• J2EE Workflow Web Services• ...

The basics

• Process

• Activities (or nodes)

• Edges

• Users

• Roles

• External events

Process

• A process is the description of – a set of tasks or activities– the dependencies between tasks– a set of roles– a set of users participating to the process– the relationship between roles and tasks– the relationships between user and roles

Activities• Activities are used

– To represent tasks that have to be executed– To express synchronisation conditions

• AND-JOIN, OR-JOIN

– To express execution conditions• Automatic, Traditional, Anticipable

• Activities have– A role– A deadline– A state (initial, ready, anticipable, executing, anticipating, dead,

terminated,…)

Edges

• Edge are used to represent control flow dependencies between activities

• Edge have– A state (initial, active, dead)– A condition

• Expressed as BeanShell script

• Evaluated when the edge becomes active

• Edge are also used for basic data flow

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Basic Organisation

ProcessSessionBeanProvides the Process Instantiation API

UserSessionBeanProvides the user API to

get information on Todo list and started activitiesproduce events on activities (start, terminate, ...)

EngineBeanHidden to userProvides the execution engine. Manage process states

and process changesAPI are also available as Web Services

ProcessSession Bean

• A process session bean provides the interface for– Creation of the process– Definition of nodes and edges– Modifications of properties

• A process is enacted immediately.

Process editor• Tool for interactive edition of the process

Process definition• A Web Interface is used for detailled definition

Process execution• Process execution is done by commands

– UserSessionBean implements commands and queries• Projects of a user• Todo List• Executing activities• Start/terminate/Cancel commands

• Process execution is controlled by a special session bean that implements the state machine (EngineBean)

The activity manager

• Client interface for process execution

• Provides– User projects– Todo list for a user– Executing activities

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Awareness (1)

JMS notifications in workflow users definition and visualizationUser notifications:

Mail notificationsJabber notifications

Awareness(2)• The process editor provide a view of the state of the

process

Awareness(3)The process editor allows multiple users definition.

Awareness(4)Jabber Notification based in user preferences

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Advanced features

• Anticipation

• Runtime process change

• Properties

• Hooks

• Process clone

AnticipationGreen activities are anticipable

Process changeThe process can be changed anytime during its execution

Properties

• Properties are data attached to– A process– An activity

• Process properties are the global data of the process

• Activity properties provide a basic data flow– Implicit propagation along the control flow– Properties can be used in

• Activity Scripts• Edge conditions

Hooks• Hooks are used to add automatic behavior to activities for

– Integration– Control– Automation

• Hook are scripts written in– Tcl, java or beanscript

• They are associated to the following events– Before start and after start– Before terminate and after terminate– Executing– On Cancel– On Die

• Before start and after terminate are executed outside of the activity transactional contextIf the before start fails, the activity does not start but does not

fail either... it can be retried later.• After start, On execute and before terminate are

executed inside the activity transactional contextFailure of one of the hooks makes the activity failed

• On Die and On cancel are used to take action in case of activity failureRecovery, programmatic compensation, instantiation of a

compensation process

Hooks

Process Hook vs Activity Hook

• A process hook will be executed for each activity of the process– Allows to specialized the process behavior

• An activity hook is executed only for the activities it is attached to

• Executing hook can be used for automatic activities

• A hook is implemented as a BeanShell script or as a Java class (must be deployed)

• The script has access to the current activity bean and to engine bean (change to the process execution status can be done)

Hooks Implementation

Process Clone• Clone is used instead of schema to instantiate processes• A Process clone is an exact copy of an existing process

except that– All activity and edge states are reinitialised– Participants to the project are not copied

• To use a cloned project the admin has to– set the users– recreate the user/role relationship

• No relationship between the copies

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Web Services

• Powerful and easy integration that will enable more efficient business processes.

• You will easily integrate your software with other pieces of software.

• No need to worry about how each Web Service is implemented.

Web Services and J2EE

Proprietary Protocol

IIOP HTTP

Web service Container

Servlets

Business Partner or other system

Applets, JWSApplications


Existing SystemERP System

Connectors

EJB’s

XML Parser

JSP, MVC Framework…

View generation Web Container

EJB Container

HTTPRMI

Client tier

Back-EndSystems

DB

SQL Web Services Technologies

Web Services Technologies

Computer

Bonita Web Services Architecture• Bonita Third Generation Workflow

Architecture based on Web Services.Server-Side

Business Logic

Struts

Server-SidePresentation

Web Services Client-Side

Presentation

Workflow information

Bonita Database

MySQL

Postgres

Oracle Bonita Definition component Bonita Execution component Web environment to define and control the workflow process

• 100% browser-based environment• We can use external Web Services and also

publish Workflow Web Services.

HTTP Request sent to SOAP server

HTTP Response from SOAP server

HTTPEncoding/Decoding

SOAPSerialization/

De-serialization

SOAP PackageXML

Method Call

Local Interfaces

HTTPView

generationXML Java

Parser

Bonita Struts Framework

Web Server

Business Partner

Server

Business Partner

Service API

(XML/SOAP)

Bonita 100% Browser-based

Bonita & Web Services

Integrating Bonita Web Services• Data translation and transformation

– Translating the results of the business service into XML

– Bonita XML Data Binding Serializer.– XML data binding offers a simpler approach to

working with XML

• Client Connectivity– Different kinds of clients connect to the web

services in a variety of ways: UDDI, WSDL, SOAP, ebXML.

– Multiple client views for one web service.

• The XML code returned to the client.

NodeLightValue

state

id

creatoridname

nameemail

role

id namedescription

…

node1 2

[email protected] admin The admin role admin

1

22

Bonita Web Services Sample

• A particular Bonita Web Service can be adapted to each user view.


Session Bean

Transform XML

Servlet / JSP s

UDDI Registry

Register Servicein UDDI Registry

JAXR

JAXM, JAX/RPC

JAXP, JAXB

Locale Service and Service Descriptions (WSDL and/or CPP)

SOAP and/or ebXML request

Web service Container

Castor XML Data Binding

XSL/XSLT

Client Request

Bonita Client Connectivity

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Bonita integration example

• Libresource Platform:– A modular platform for cooperative software

development– Virtual teams hosting and distributed

communities– Data sharing, coordination, awareness,

communication

http://libresource.loria.fr/

Libresource integration

Agenda



• Awareness


• Web services


• Current work

Bonita State• Used in different projects

– KVM– Libresource– Coopera

• > 5000 downloads at Bonita ObjectWeb site.

• Bonita references at: TheServerSide, Apache, Freshmeat, Internet Global Congress...

• Stable execution engine

Current work• Short term

– Completion of MultiInstanction implementation– Integration in the LibreSource platform– New workflow administration web interface.– Hook editor – Import XPDL workflow files.

• Middle term– XPDL workflow model– Web Services orchestration: BPEL4WS– ...

XPDL Standard• Variety of different tools exists to define workflow processes • XPDL defines a common interchange format:

– transfer workflow process definitions between different products

• Separation between the development and run-time environments

Bonita & XPDL Standard

Jawe Definition Client

XPDL representation

Bonita Definition Client

http://bonita.debian-sf.objectweb.org/

Bonita Home Page

bonita j2ee workflow cooperative system miguel valdés faura jiap project 09/12/2003

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