DevOps adopts BPM best practices to build apps- Valutrics

When viewed as application development platforms, requirements for BPM systems are tied to the use of development methodologies, particularly DevOps.

Modern BPM systems must be compatible with the DevOps approach, as much any other software development platform, said Phil Simpson, senior principal product marketing manager for JBoss Middleware at Red Hat.

There are natural affinities between DevOps and BPM, added Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT in Hayward, Calif. DevOps aims to better integrate the all-too-often separate efforts of developers and operations professionals, while BPM focuses on enhancing business processes and workflows to address specific customer requirements or deliver broader benefits.

“While DevOps efforts are often inward-focused and BPM is typically focused outward, both can deliver substantial value to customers,” King noted. “That’s mainly because many of the core goals of DevOps, including dynamic planning, Lean and Agile techniques, continuous integration and automated testing, can all impact the timing and quality of processes that impact customers. Strong business rules are the tracks that projects run on and are essential to reaching the desired destination.”

Business rules have always been an important part of BPM since they help support the automation of business processes.

Meanwhile, “Fast development “We have Agile development teams in our labs that help build segments of code in sprints and put them into actual use with customers to generate a real market feedback loop that validates our product-service-solution direction and delivers value to ourselves and customers during the innovation process,” said Ed Fox, vice president of network services at telecommunications provider MetTel in New York.

Fox said DevOps intersects with BPM at all points in his organization. “DevOps helps make the innovation process continuous, and BPM needs to be a living process that can dynamically evolve to support new and improved capabilities on-the-fly,” he said, “which is why BPM should be delivered in a SaaS model, as ours is.”