BPM and SOA are frequently combined to provide greater business value than either technology
provides independently. Which statements are true with regard to combining the BPM Technology
Perspective and SOA Technology Perspective?
A.
A Business Process may invoke a SOA Services to perform specific tasks within the process
flow.
B.
A Business Process may be exposed as a SOA Service.
C.
When combining SOA and BPM, all the tasks within a Business Process are accomplished via
Services.
D.
A Business Process may invoke an SOA Service, but an SOA Service cannot invoke a
Business Process.
E.
Every business Process is exposed as a SOA Service.
Explanation:
Note E: BPM processes and sub-processes can (but are not required) themselves be exposed as
SOA Services. This enables processes to be composed of SOA Services that are implemented
as processes. It can be beneficial in two ways. First, it improves reuse of lower level
system-centric processes (i.e. service orchestrations), and second, it offers a standard
interface mechanism with which to invoke all types of business processes.
Note: BPM and SOA are often used together, as they both support a closer alignment
between business and IT, and they both promote agility. BPM targets alignment and
agility at the process level, while SOA applies more at the activity level. Hence,
business processes and SOA Services can represent business constructs, providing a
mapping between the things business does and the way IT helps get it done.
The convergence of BPM and SOA generally happens via process decomposition. That
is when business processes are modeled as, (i.e. decomposed into), activities. All
automated activities must be backed by some form of executable code or function call.
These functions, if they are deemed worthy, can be engineered as SOA Services
following service-oriented design principles. Agility at the process level is attained by
changing the process model. Agility at the service level is achieved by deploying
services that are loosely coupled and independently managed.
