BPM Server is the process engine of the Billfish Business Process Manager. It consists of multiple integrated and independently scalable J2EE-based engines that work together to execute, control and monitor business processes. It also manages process data and integration with third-party applications such as database, email and file systems.
The primary function of BPM Server is the management of business process workflow. It interprets process model definitions, starts new process instances, creates tasks, routes work to the appropriate users or systems, renders user forms, manages shared task queues, implements gateway logic, handles user interaction, and makes sure that work gets done. BPM Server also sends email task notifications, manages timers, events, sub-process calls and handles user security and privileges.
At its core, Billfish BPM provides an independent data model that allows all business processes to share the same information architecture. The Billfish BPM Data Spaces feature allows process developers to model business domain data that will be used as an abstraction layer between the process application itself and any line-of-business data contained in third party applications. Subsequently, the process data may be flushed from the Billfish BPM Data Space into the external application database - or - the Billfish BPM Data Space can be used for permanent storage. This latter usage cuts out all integration labor and results in faster application development. Billfish maintains a repository that supports all major databases including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL.
Billfish BPM supports an integrated plugin architecture which allows for unlimited flexibility in terms of application integration capabilities. Plugins are essentially Java classes installed in a directory on the BPM Server and registered with the system in order to make their functionality available from any Script Task in a process. Using plugins, you can send an email, create a file, insert data into a database, or create a document in a 3rd party content management system. Billfish BPM includes several built-in plugins for sending emails, database access, file system access and for writing PDF templates. Billfish BPM supports any datasource for which a JDBC driver is available including Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL, IBM DB2, PostgreSQL and HSQLDB.
Billfish BPM was built from its inception with cloud computing in mind. The BPM Server component has a multi-tenant architecture that allows a single cloud-based instance to serve multiple client organizations thus providing virtual partitioning in which each client organization (or tenant) has its own Data Spaces, process definitions, process data, users, groups, departments and general configuration. Setting up new tenants can be done two ways: manually, via the BPM Portal (using the BPM Server "root" password) - and - programmatically, using a service.
BPM Server is built on the open Internet standards of enterprise edition Java (J2EE) and XML. It supports all J2EE-compliant application servers including JBOSS, BEA WebLogic, Oracle Application Server, IBM WebSphere and Apache Geronimo as well as lightweight Servlet containers such as Tomkat and Jetty. And - because it is 100% open standard Java, Billfish BPM runs on all major OS platforms including Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, and Apple Mac OS X.
Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, or Intel-based Apple Mac, Java SE 6 (Internal version 1.6) or greater, 1 GB memory, 200 MB disk space.
