AgilePoint BPM Suite

AgilePoint BPM Suite is a .NET-based, model-driven, Business Process Management (BPM) solution, aimed at building SOA-aligned, highly adaptive process-based applications through composition of process-enabled IT assets abstracted from and across existing applications, and messaging and productivity solutions, with a focus on leveraging common Microsoft technologies such as SharePoint servers, SharePoint services, BizTalk, InfoPath, Visual Studio, and the .NET platform.

The suite comprises a Visio-based process modeller which is, in fact, also an integrated composition environment for process-based SOA composition, a Visual Studio-based development environment for creating encapsulated reusable process elements in XML enabled by metadata driven IT asset abstraction framework, and a XML-based process execution engine. AgilePoint focuses on increased visibility and manageability into processes, both at design time and at run time, and on business user-driven process formulation and management.

AgilePoint has taken the potential of a Microsoft-based BPM to a new level by delivering the industry's first .NET-based metadata framework enabled model-driven BPMS that can:

• Go hand-in-hand with SOA and realize the true value proposition of SOA. AgilePoint delivers the 'Last Mile' for SOA by being able to abstract and expose custom IT assets, called AgileParts and AgileWorks, to the process layer. These process-enabled IT assets can be included in process models by business users to create directly executable process models through process-based composition. As these executable process models were never turned into compiled code before execution, they remain highly adaptable at run-time to address increasingly dynamic business requirements. This is in stark contrast to IT-driven, code-based SOA composition that still generates rigid, monolithic executables and constrains the value proposition of SOA.

• Extend business user empowerment beyond modelling and simulation to include full-lifecycle, iterative deployment for improvement validation without burdening IT through the creation of process-based composite applications with the user experience of assembling a process diagram.

  AgilePoint BPMS enables business to implement process-based applications and integrations that power end-to-end business operations and respond to market changes at the business level using reusable functions built by IT.

• Enable businesses to expand the scope of process-management initiative to include not only structured processes but also the increasingly common dynamic, ad hoc processes where each instance of execution could change depending on external conditions.

• Enable businesses to derive differentiated competitiveness through being able to manage exceptions and respond to compliance and/or business requirement changes of running processes in real time through dynamic process adaptation capabilities such as in-flight process migration, dynamic roll-back, dynamic re-route, dynamic partial re-work, etc.

AgilePoint is a 100% .NET platform oriented BPM engine which is robust, secure, scalable, and manageable, with XML and Web services forming the core of the solution architecture. It provides a metadata driven layered architecture which is 3-tiered to start with and can be scaled to n-tiers.
 
The AgilePoint BPM Suite provides end-to-end BPM with designing/modeling, deployment, management, monitoring, and reporting capabilities. The solution helps automate all the human-human, human-system, and system-system interactions in a process. Around 100+ common workflow and process-enabled elements of Microsoft products and technologies such as SharePoint, Active Directory, InfoPath, BizTalk, Exchange, ASP.NET, Web Service, etc., are available out of the box. Processes can be built by dragging and dropping process elements, i.e. abstracted and process-enabled IT assets and SOA services, onto the design palette and connect them using Visio connectors, which creates a process-based composite application. Processes can be modified on the fly to deliver the ultimate business agility, without having to making changes in the modelling environment, redeploying the change, and restarting the process.
 
Objects developed using the .NET-based AgilePoint Developer can be saved as Visio process elements. The AgilePoint BPM Suite also offers integrated Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), in-flight process analytics and adaptation/optimisation capabilities.The process execution and implementation data is held in a database, and can be retrieved to deliver historic analysis and current process monitoring through the management and reporting console.
 
AgilePoint integrates with legacy systems using database connections, Web services, and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) solutions. When adopted initially by a non-Microsoft-centric organization as the integrated process-based SOA composition environment, AgilePoint also lets organizations leverage their existing Java based assets through Web Services, and IBM DB2, Oracle databases. 
 

Business users hold a company’s real knowledge and know-how. With AgilePoint, business users who make up the enterprise’s frontline can not only model business processes but also deploy them. Now that all the different sides of business management in the enterprise are able to implement and improve processes with which they are most familiar using reusable executable functions built by IT. IT can now perform their functions more strategically and play the true enabler role and does not have to be involved in every improvement. This advancement not only enables business agility but also eliminates chunks of traditional programming and engineering cycle, saving costs and shortening the time it takes to implement a business integration solution. This is how agility can be achieved and higher operational cost efficiency can be quickly optimized.