BPM Product Analysis

A Comparison of IBM Business Process Manager and

Oracle BPM

October 2013

This white paper was sponsored by Oracle but was written by AVIO Consulting as an
independent comparison between the BPM products offered by IBM and Oracle.

AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013

Executive Summary
Business Process Management (BPM) software from the various vendors has become very
difficult to evaluate and compare. The market is now at the maturity level where most of the
vendors appear on the surface to have the similar functionality. Using RFPs to compare
products is made difficult because a full support check mark does not reflect a features ease
of use or if it will be included in the product without an additional charge. Having both IT and
the business with their differing needs and weighting factors work together to select a BPM
tool adds to the complexity of the selection. As a result, companies are often left unsure that
they have selected the best product for their needs.

IBM and Oracle have taken similar approaches to BPM. Both products originate from a BPM
pure play heritage. IBM acquired Lombardis BPM product in 2010. Oracle acquired BEA and its
AquaLogic BPM product in 2008. IBM Business Process Manager consists of a variety of
development tools and runtime engines from both their Lombardi and existing IBM legacy
products. Oracle BPM Suite is a more unified product with tools designed specifically for the
disparate needs of business users and developers.

Based on feedback from customers and industry consultants familiar with both products, the
following factors combine to make Oracle BPM Suite the superior choice:

1. Functionality Oracle BPM includes comprehensive features customers need on BPM

projects. Included are: web-based business user process modeling, content
management, case management, portal, fully functional business rules, Business Activity
Monitoring (BAM), data model and its entire portfolio of pre-built Process Accelerators.
2. Product Integration Oracle BPMs development tools and its runtime architecture is
very tightly integrated. The functionality in one tool is not duplicated in another.
Development time is saved because artifacts in the project are kept in synch and are not
lost as the work transitions between the business users and developers. Whatever is
modeled is exactly what will be executed. While Oracle BPM developers use a single
well integrated tool, IBM BPM developers use two loosely spliced development tools
with overlapping features.
3. Ease of use Oracle BPM is the easier of the two products to use in three essential
areas. First, the processes are modeled by the business and enhanced with technical
details by developers in an easy to understand common format that both understand.
Second, both developers and business people each have tools specifically built for their
different skills and needs. The technical implementation components needed by
developers in the tool they use are masked in the business users tool. Third, the tooling
required to integrate to back-end systems is much easier to use in Oracle BPM.

1
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 4. Cost IBM Business Process Manager and its Industry Packs are significantly more
expensive than Oracle BPM and its Process Accelerators. In addition, Oracle BPM comes
with features IBM Business Process Manager either does not possess or only includes at
an additional charge. IBM Business Process Managers Integration Designer tool has a
very steep learning curve and more professional services to integrate the disparate
components are required. Because Oracle BPM projects perform better than IBM
Business Process Manager projects, less hardware and software needs to be purchased.
5. Business User Empowerment The business plays a much more important role on
Oracle BPM projects. The dependency on IT is reduced because actual business users
participate in the full lifecycle of Oracle BPM projects by creating their own processes,
user interfaces, business rules and even the information carried by the individual work
item instances using a simple web-based tool.

2
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Evaluation Methodology
As a well-known leading expert in BPM, AVIO Consulting has extensive experience helping
organizations evaluate, select and implement BPM products through product demonstrations,
hands-on proof of concepts and enterprise project implementations. This analysis report
incorporates these experiences.

The products were also evaluated based on detailed interviews that were conducted. The
interviewees, primarily developers and administrators, were selected based on their hands-on
experience with at least one of the BPM products, and in the case of some interviewees, both
BPM products. Each was asked a series of detailed questions that covered each products
business and technical approaches and the features of the product.

3
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Overview of the Products
BPM products are changing rapidly to keep pace with the demands of the market. As a result,
BPM is becoming more difficult to define and areas once outside of BPM are now fully
integrated in many products.

In its purest form, companies use BPM today to create seamless end-to-end business processes.
Using BPM, companies can handle the difficult challenge of integrating existing systems,
outside events, data, documents and human interactions. This means that people and systems
can have discrete activities inside cohesive processes that support the organizations business
objectives across different parts of the organization and its heterogeneous applications. As
work flows through the processes, people have tasks automatically assigned to them at the
right time in the process with exactly the right contextual data they need to do their work.
Similarly, when BPM processes need to communicate with various external systems, the BPM
processes invoke the external systems services automatically at runtime resulting in a seamless
integration.

With IBM Business Process Manager, IBM spliced together two products that were conceptually
and architecturally different products the Lombardi BPM product and IBMs own legacy
WebSphere BPM product. Two of the ways that the product is packaged are called the
Advanced and Standard Editions.

IBM Business Process Manager Editions

Advanced Edition Standard Edition

A third edition not shown above is called Express. Designed for customers just getting started,
it is identical to the Standard Edition, but can only run on a single server, cannot be clustered
and therefore does not have the scalability needed for most production environments. Only
the Advanced Edition contains Integration Designer, a complex IBM legacy Eclipse based
integrated development environment (IDE) tool developers use to create, expose and
orchestrate services and databases.

4
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Process Designer originated from the Lombardi BPM tool. Even though both Integration
Designer and Process Designer run on the Eclipse IDE, they are not integrated and are installed
and run completely independent of one another on different versions of Eclipse. Developers
use Process Designer to model processes and create end user interfaces. The business rules
used by the processes can be added here using a scaled down version of IBMs Operational
Decision Manager (ODM) tool with key functionality disabled. Even though Process Designer
and Integration Designer are distinctly different tools, some of their functionality overlaps and
to varying degrees both can expose back-end services and databases.

Developers use IBM Business Process Managers Process Center to manage, deploy and interact
with the Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) and BPEL processes they create in
the two different development tools. Process Server is the runtime environment where
process work item instances of IBMs Business Process Manager are executed. If IBM Business
Process Managers Advanced Edition is purchased, separate runtime environments execute the
two different types of processes (BPMN and BPEL). Customers purchasing the Standard Edition
can only execute BPMN processes. Although IBM Business Process Manager does not come
with a true web 2.0 portal, end users access IBM Business Process Managers Process Portal
web-based tool to interact with work item instances as they flow through the processes.

Oracles BPM product is the result of Oracles acquisition of BEAs pure-play BPM product called
AquaLogic BPM.

Oracle Business Process Management Editions

Oracle BPM Suite Oracle BPM Standard Edition

5
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Following the acquisition of BEAs product line, Oracle invested heavily in unifying and tightly
integrating their BPM line of software from both a design time and a runtime perspective. In
2010, Oracle completed this integration of their process modeling, business rules, service
orchestration, content management and analytic components into what now constitutes Oracle
BPM.

Oracle BPM has two development environments called

Differences:
Oracle Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM
With IBM BPM, developers use Studio targeted for business users and developers,
two different tools with respectively. Process Composer is an easy to use web-
overlapping functionality. based tool specifically designed for business users and
Oracle BPM Studio is designed for developers use.
Oracle BPM Studio is the single
Oracle BPM comes with Oracles Business Activity
fully integrated tool developers
use in both Suite and Standard Monitoring (BAM) tool, WebCenter Content for
Editions. content management and a standalone web-based end
user environment called the Workspace.

Oracle BPM is packaged in two different configurations called Oracle BPM Suite and Oracle
BPM Standard Edition. The primary difference is that Standard Edition does not include the
BPEL editor, the BPEL engine for service orchestration and the WebCenter Portal that Oracle
BPM Suite includes. Although the IBM and Oracle BPM packaging may appear similar, Oracle
BPM provides additional functionality with BAM, content management, and a fully enable
business rules modeling and runtime engine. In addition, when purchasing the Oracle BPM
Suite, a true web 2.0 portal called WebCenter Spaces and full case management are included.

Oracle BPM is a core component in Oracles Fusion Middleware stack the platform used to
develop Oracles Fusion Middleware Application portfolio of products.

Business Approach to BPM

Until recently, BPM tools have been almost exclusively used by technically oriented business
analysts and developers. Today, business people want to play a much more active role that
goes beyond initial requirements gathering and high level process modeling.

Using IBMs hosted Blueworks Live product, business people on BPM projects initially model
and document high level business processes. Although easy to use, Blueworks Live is a
separately purchased product outside of the IBM Business Process Manager stack. Initial
requirements gathering and process modeling are the softwares intended functions.

6
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
IBMs hosted environment outside of the companys firewall stores the processes created in
Blueworks Live. In order to access process design definitions created in Blueworks Live, a
developer manually imports them into IBMs on-
Differences:
premise Process Designer tool. The models in Process
Designer and Blueworks Live are not kept in synch with
IBMs Blueworks Live product
for business users is not a part one another. Although high level process definitions
of IBM BPM and is not carry over, many artifacts and properties created in
integrated with IBM BPM. Blueworks Live are lost as they are manually imported
into Process Designer (e.g., who the expert is, risk
Oracle BPM is packaged and
factors). Similarly, developers who enhance processes
tightly integrated with Process
Composer. The processes are using Process Designer and manually export them back
always kept in synch for both into Blueworks Live lose a significant portion of the
the business users on Process BPMN artifacts as well as all of the implementation
Composer and the developers artifacts that were added.
using Studio. Nothing is lost in
translation between the tools. Business people assigned to Oracle BPM projects play a
much more important role than on an IBM Business
With Oracle BPMs web-based
Process Composer, business Process Manager project. Using Oracle BPMs web-
users remain engaged and are based Process Composer, they not only create and
active participants of the document process models, but also run simulations,
development team throughout a create and edit business rules, design process payload,
projects lifecycle. create end user interface forms and interactively test
their processes. With Oracle BPM, the business
seamlessly shares their work with developers without losing process artifacts. Business people
have the ability to take a process all the way from modeling to execution using Process
Composer.

I became discouraged with Blueworks Live. I was unable to work when IBM
had it down for maintenance and once developers got a hold of the processes, I
knew I would never again view its current state again in Blueworks Live.
IBM BPM Business Analyst, Major Manufacturer

Technical Approach to BPM

The technical tools in a BPM product used by developers to add the implementation activities
and events into processes and to create, expose, orchestrate and integrate the underlying
services and databases needed by the processes. BPM technical tools typically have four key
facets. First, they need to be tightly integrated so work is not lost between the tools. Second,
the tools should each have a common and easy to use interface that reduces the length of time
it takes for a developer to become proficient. Third, the tools should allow business users to

7
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
have substantial input into the design of both business processes and their business rules. And
finally fourth, a vendors BPM technical tools should be easy enough to use so developers who
are not highly technical or skilled in a specific technology can easily integrate the various
services and provide the database access that the
Differences: processes will use at runtime.

IBM BPMs Integration Designer If IBM Business Process Managers Advanced Edition is
development tool is difficult to purchased, developers use both Process Designer and
use, and requires deep technical Integration Designer tools to add the implementation
skills and extensive training. details need on BPM projects. The two tools are
IBM BPMs two development distinctly different. Included from a legacy IBM
tools are distinctly different and product, most developers find Integration Designer
result in a steep learning curve. very difficult to use. Integration Designer has a
completely different look and feel than Process
The Oracle BPM Studio is the
single tool developers use Designer, they are not tightly integrated, and the
without extensive training artifacts created in the two tools are stored, tested and
throughout a projects lifecycle. run in a completely different manner. Because of their
overlapping functionality, developers are often
confused about which tool to use to integrate to web
services, databases and Java. Because integration in the two is done differently, developers
either have a steep learning curve or simply avoid using Integration Designer altogether.

If IBM Business Process Managers Standard Edition is purchased, developers can only use
Process Designer for integration. Although easier to use, it has only a small subset of the
integration capability Integration Designer includes and is not intended to be used to expose
services for general consumption outside of a BPM project.

Although we purchased Integration Designer, we avoid using it and it has

remained shelfware. It just takes too much effort to use it.
IBM BPM Developer, Major Insurance Provider

With Oracle BPM, both the developers and the business analysts access the same underlying
Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) 2.0 process artifacts through a common
repository. This means that when viewing and editing projects in either Process Composer or
Studio, artifacts are never lost between the two tools.

Using Studio, developers add the more technical BPMN 2.0 artifacts into processes developed
by the business analysts (e.g., service tasks, script tasks, message tasks, signal events), edit
business rules, and map and transform complex data from one format to another. Oracle BPM
Studio rests on top of Oracles SOA foundation of products and can add and orchestrate new

8
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
services simply. Note that Oracle BPM Studio provides the functionality included in the two
separate IBM BPM products, Process Designer and Integration Designer.

Feature Comparison
I. Design Capabilities

Process Modeling
Process models created in a BPM tool graphically represent how the work will flow to the
various people, systems and applications once the project is put into production. Ideally,
business people and business analysts modeling business processes would use a web-based
modeling interface instead of an IDE.

Although outside of IBM Business Process Managers

Differences:
products, IBMs hosted Blueworks Live product is
IBMs hosted Blueworks Live where the business can do high level requirements
lacks Oracle Business Process gathering. As a result, business people are typically
Composers rich BPMN limited to creating preliminary high level process
modeling capability. models with the tool. Although business people have
become more knowledgeable and comfortable using
Parts of processes are lost as
Blueworks Live processes are BPMN modeling artifacts in recent years, Blueworks
exported into IBM BPM and vice Live is not fully BPMN 2.0 compliant and contains only
versa. The processes are not a subset of the process modeling artifacts business
kept in synch between the two. analysts have become accustomed to using on a BPM
Oracle BPM uses standard project.
BPMN 2.0 artifacts to model
Blueworks Live process models are imported by
business processes that can be
easily understood by business developers into IBMs Eclipse based Process Designer
people. Both business people process modeling IDE. Although some artifacts are lost
and developers collaborate during the import, developers are then able to add
seamlessly viewing the same more detailed process artifacts. Although pools and
models. signal events and some activities are missing, Process
Modeling how work should be Designers process modeling tool is still more
assigned is more powerful in comprehensive than Blueworks Live and is for the most
Oracle BPM and based on part BPMN 2.0 compliant from a modeling perspective.
commonly used patterns Because of the loss of artifacts between the two
modeling tools and their lack of synchronization, what
With Oracle BPM, the businesss
view of the process reflects is modeled in Blueworks Live is not how it will be
exactly how it will be executed. executed.

9
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Both Oracle Business Process Composer and Oracle BPM Studio fully support BPMN 2.0 process
swimlane roles, activities, gateways and events. Although some might argue that BPMN 2.0
may be too complex for the business to understand, the business-oriented Process Composer
tool handles this by initially offering a simple palette containing the most commonly used
activities, gateways, and events. If the business user wants to add more sophisticated activities,
gateways or events, they can click the More button at the bottom of the drag and drop palette.

Oracle BPMs full BPMN support gives both business users and developers viewing the process
models a clear mutual understanding of what will occur at runtime. With Oracle BPM, what is
modeled in a process reflects exactly how it will be executed.

Oracle BPM can use business rules to assign tasks. In addition, Oracle BPM can model task
assignment using any of these powerful yet intuitive out-of-the-box patterns:

User simple pattern to assign work to a single user, a list of users or everyone in a role.
FYI inform a user that something has occurred but the work item continues on in the
process.
Management a sequential series of approvals that automatically escalate up a users
management chain.
Group based on the list of users specified, each user is sent the work item
simultaneously.
Complex a combination of any of these patterns.

Process modeling in Oracle BPM is just what I need. It was simple to learn and
it lets me create implementable processes that my whole extended team can
comprehend. Oracle BPM Business Analyst, IT Services Provider

Simulation
When modeling processes the focus is on the activities, sequence flows, gateways and defining
who owns the work for the various activities in the process. While processes do a good job of
showing the activities and how they are connected to one another, they do not provide the
information regarding the variations that might occur when the process is actually executed in
production. As a result, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where bottlenecks and cost overruns
will occur once a project is deployed into production.

By creating and running simulations, business analysts are able to emulate what will happen
very early in the projects lifecycle and long before a process goes into production. Simulations
find exactly where process related bottlenecks and budget overruns will occur. Designers,
developers, and managers can then focus on optimizing those critical areas of the process.

10
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 IBMs Blueworks Live does not include simulation.
Differences:
Although simulations are rarely performed by
Simulation is not included with developers, Process Designer can be used to run
IBMs Blueworks Live. simulations.

In Oracle BPM, process Unlike Blueworks Live, simulations can be run in Oracle
simulations can be run from BPM by the business using its web-based Process
both Process Composer and Composer tool as well as its developer oriented Oracle
Studio tools.
BPM Studio tool. The simulation features provided in
IBMs Process Designer and those provided in Oracle
BPMs Process Composer and Studio are roughly equivalent.

Business Rules
Business rules are invoked by BPM business processes to route and assign work items. The
rules consist of business configurable if-then statements or decision tables that look like
spreadsheets. As the name implies, ideally business rules are externalized into tools that give
non-technical business users the ability to create and modify them. Because of the separation
between processes and business rules, the two should be able to be changed independently
with differing lifecycles. As the business needs to change and the business rules are changed,
the processes that invoke them should remain unchanged.

Although IBM BPM includes a scaled down version of IBMs Operation Decision Manager (ODM)
product for its business rules, it has some significant limitations:

Business rules can only be created and modified using the Eclipse based Process
Designer IDE. Business people have no way to change the rules using a web-based tool.
Business rules changes cannot be made independently of the process. Even the
simplest business rule changes cannot be activated without also activating the changes
also made in its process. This limits the business agility that business rules are designed
to provide.
Unless the full ODM business rules product is purchased, IBM process business rules are
not externalized and can only be invoked from inside business processes.
IBM ODMs capability has been significantly limited in IBM BPMs business rules engine.
Business rules are executed sequentially in a procedural manner. This results in poorer
performance at runtime and unnecessary additional debugging as rule sequences
change or when individual rules are edited, modified or deleted.
Debugging business rules is difficult because design-time rule gap and conflict analysis is
not included with the IBM BPM products limited business rule capability.

11
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 With IBM business rules, you are given only small a taste of what using
business rules is like, but to do anything beyond the basics we had to buy
business rules software separately. IBM BPM Business Analyst, System
Integration Provider

Typically people with differing skill sets model processes and create business rules. Oracle
BPMs tools speed development by allowing the business rules to be defined separately and in
parallel with the processes that are modeled. Because rules are separate from processes, the
business becomes more agile and adaptable to change. Business people can change Oracle
business rules as often as the business needs them to
Differences: change. The changes take effect immediately without
redeploying the associated processes each time.
IBM BPM business rule changes
cannot be made without also Oracle BPM business rules are created, modified and
activating the changes made in run using a fully enabled business rules engine called
the process as well. Oracle Business Rules. Both business people and
With IBM BPM, a business business analysts using their web-based Process
person cannot create or modify Composer tool and developers using Oracle BPM
business rules independently Studio can create and edit business rules. Once
using a web-based interface. changed, the changes can take effect immediately if
desired. The processes that invoke the rules remain
IBM BPMs business rules do not
support complex decisions unchanged and do not have to be redeployed.
requiring chaining, stateful
Instead of invoking rules sequentially, Oracle BPMs
execution or the Rete algorithm.
business rules engine includes the Rete algorithm.
Agility is improved because From a practical viewpoint, this means:
Oracle BPM process models and
business rules are loosely Performance is improved as multiple rules with
coupled, which simplifies common conditions store the partially matched results
development, and provides a in memory.
division of labor.
The rules in rulesets do not have to execute
With Oracle BPM, business sequentially in a defined order. Rules can be added,
people can make changes to
modified or deleted without impacting other rules.
business rules in any phase of
development or production.
Oracle BPMs business rule editor reduces the
Changes can be made without
having to redeploy its associated possibility of runtime errors by automatically detecting
process. when there are rule overlaps, conflicts and gaps in the
rules.

12
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Once created, the Oracle BPM business rules can be invoked both from processes by adding a
business rule activity and also externally by other applications as a web service.

User Interface Form Creation

The user interfaces created inside BPM tools are how the information about a work item is
displayed to the end-users at runtime. The user interfaces can display dynamically rendered
graphical charts, graphs and maps to help represent the data.

Both IBM BPM and Oracle BPM have user interface

Differences:
development tools that use a declarative diagram drag-
In IBM BPMs latest version, and-drop, property driven approach to creating end
web forms should be designed user forms.
by a developer.
IBMs hosted business oriented Blueworks Live tool
Oracle BPMs Web Form does not include a user interface form design tool.
Designer is simpler to use than Although building user interface forms in IBM BPM
IBMs Process Designer form Process Designer was simple enough for business
design tool.
people to use in previous versions, the latest version of
With Oracle BPM, both non- IBM Business Process Manager now requires
technical business people and substantially more technical expertise. As a result,
developers can create the user forms are now primarily created by developers.
forms using tools specifically
designed for them. With Oracle BPMs Web Form Designer, non-technical
business people create user interface forms quickly
with very little training. Forms are created either using its simple drag and drop interface or
automatically generated from a data object. A developer might assist when there is a
requirement to hide and show or disable and enable fields or populate dropdowns where
JavaScript is required.

Developers use Oracle BPM Studios Application Development Framework (ADF) tool to create
the complex end-user forms that require sophisticated controls and functionality. ADF is a
best-in-class tool used by thousands of developers both inside Oracle BPM and also outside to
develop forms in portals, standalone web applications and in Oracles own Fusion Application
packages. It is a complete Model View Controller (MVC) JavaServer Faces (JSF) standards based
environment. Because it is MVC based, it is transparent where the information displayed on
the ADF forms comes from and can include an aggregation of the data coming from the
processs payload, web services, databases, Java classes and EJBs. Although ADF is a very
powerful tool, it does have a higher learning curve associated with it. Having the assistance of
someone who has used ADF on a previous project can help developers get who are new to the
technology.

13
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Data Modeling
Data modeling tools define how information will be stored in a relational database. A diagram
is used to define the tables, how the information is stored in each table, and lines are drawn
between the tables to reflect how the tables relate to one another. For example, a data model
diagram shows that an order can have many order lines by showing an ORDER table and an
ORDER_LINE table and a line between the two indicating that orders have zero, one or more
order lines. Data modeling is often needed on a BPM project to model how its underlying data
is to be stored. This becomes especially important if information needs to be persisted beyond
the life of a work item in a process.

IBM Business Process Manager does not include a tool

Difference:
for relational database modeling, and if this is a
IBM requires the purchase of requirement, a third party tool must be purchased
another tool to model data. separately.

Oracle BPM includes a best-in- Oracle BPM Studio includes the same tool that
class data modeling tool. developers have used for years to create and maintain
relational data models. Logical data models are
created declaratively in a diagram that shows the tables, their foreign keys and primary keys.
The logical data model is then used to easily create the physical tables either through Oracle
BPM Studio directly or by the SQL it generates.

Integration
Integration refers to a BPM tools ability to automatically connect to and invoke backend
systems and databases as work items flow through the processes. One of the key benefits of a
BPM product is its ability to integrate to backend systems inside the tool without developers
having to resort to hand coding the interfaces. An average developer should be able to
integrate services and backend system without having deep technical skills in a specific
technology.

IBM Business Process Managers Process Designer tool is used to integrate processes with back
end services that are exposed as Java, web services and databases. Process Designers
integration capability is sometimes limiting, cumbersome, error prone and (because it is
JavaScript based) slower at runtime. Some specific examples cited by customers included:

Process Designer has no data mapping tool, information passed into and back out of the
called service has to be mapped using hand coded JavaScript by a developer. For
complex XSDs this can be a time consuming and error prone task.
Although backend systems typically expose themselves using web services, Process
Designer has some limits to what it can handle. For example, services cannot be

14
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 exposed or invoked when the services WSDL uses a reserved JavaScript word (e.g.,
return), when an element uses the xsd:any type or when polymorphic elements are
used.
Process Designer is not always able to integrate with Java component methods. For
example, Process Designer can only invoke methods in introspected Java if they use
simple scalar parameters and have a default constructor.

When developers using IBMs Process Designer to integrate database information with a
process, they are required to hand code SQL. Database integration with Oracle BPM has no
such restriction. Because Oracle BPM developers are provided wizards that automatically check
the syntax and guide them through database table and column selections, developers are much
more productive and spend less time correcting SQL issues.

As the underlying services are exposed and connected,

Differences:
the data going into and back out from services often
IBM BPMs Process Designer require XSLT to perform the complex transformations
has some very significant from one data schemas format into another. Complex
limitations. transformations requiring XSLT in IBMs Process
Designer must be hand coded or created using a third
Data mapping, XLST and
database SQL must be hand party tool. Oracle BPM on the other hand includes a
coded in Process Designer. best-in-class declarative drag-and-drop mapping tool
and stores the mapping in XSLT standard syntax. Using
For training purposes,
the tool, both simple and complex logic driven
developers can get hands-on
mappings are available as the data is transformed.
experience using Oracle BPM
by simply downloading and To overcome the shortcomings in IBM BPMs Process
installing the openly available
Designer, customers either purchase IBMs IT centric
software from Oracle.
Integration Designer tool by upgrading to IBM BPM
Oracle BPMs Composite Advanced Edition or a developer hand codes a wrapper
diagram visually represents the to the service or method invoked. With either of these
integration between the
options, skilled developers with deep technical skills
components.
are required.
Oracle BPM uses a simple drag-
and-drop, standards based A key benefit of Oracle BPM Suite is that it is seamlessly
diagram to easily transform layered on top of Oracle's SOA platform and its
data between services. complete set of best-in-class adapters and tools.
Oracles SOA platform is a proven, standards based
approach to exposing and integrating databases and backend services using standard Java EE
Connector Architecture (JCA) adapters. Some of the adapters included are: B2B, database, EJB,

15
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
File, FTP, HTTP, JMS, MQ and web service adapters. Adapters to business applications such as
Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel and others are also available.

In addition to the vendors training, developers can easily learn how to integrate services using
Oracle BPMs documentation inside its tools, commercially available books, Oracles online
Oracle BPM Learning Library or through the Oracle Technical Network (OTN). Developers can
get hands-on practical experience using Oracle BPM by simply downloading the software
openly available from Oracles website.

Oracle BPM Suite is definitely the best choice to integrate and supplement Oracle Fusion
Application solutions. Oracle Fusion Applications are easily made process-aware and integrated
with Oracle BPM through:

Pre-built integration Fusion Applications come with pre-built Oracle BPM processes
and the reusable services required for integration.
Built using Oracle BPM Both Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
and Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) Fusion applications were created
using BPMN processes. This means that both can be modified and extended natively
using Oracle BPM.

Each Oracle BPM project has a standards-based Service Component Architecture (SCA)
composite diagram associated with it that is used to not only define the components, but also
to depict how the components are assembled and connected to one another declaratively by
simply dragging the wires between components on the diagram.

Both IBM Advanced Edition and Oracle BPM Suite include the robust service-to-service
orchestration tools BPM projects sometimes require. Both use BPELs standards based
approach to model services, manage transactions, and handle compensations when exceptions
occur. When complex service orchestration is required, a BPM processs service activity can
invoke a BPEL process.

Simply put we find IBM BPM integration is very confusing and complicated.
IBM BPM Developer, Major Financial Institution

16
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
II. Execution Capabilities

Business User Experience

End users only see and perform the tasks assigned to them or to their assigned groups based on
the process models design. Although business users select, execute, re-assign, delegate and
escalate tasks similarly in both IBM Business Process Manager and Oracle BPM, the
collaboration between business users is handled differently.

Although not truly a portal, end users interact with

Differences:
IBM Business Process Managers work item instances
Oracle BPM includes a full assigned to them using the standalone web-based
featured web 2.0 portal and product called Process Portal. As well as having the
collaboration environment with ability to list and perform their assigned tasks, IBM
the product that includes chat, Business Process Managers Process Portal allows
Wiki, IM, Blog, discussions, and users to interactively collaborate with one another.
announcements capabilities.
Oracle WebCenter is a full featured Web 2.0 portal and
collaboration environment, and Oracle BPM Suite includes WebCenters Process Spaces.
Process Spaces is role-based, and business users only see and perform the tasks assigned to
them or to their assigned groups. Based on the business users permissions, they can also view,
create or modify process models, business rules and user interfaces using Process Composers
web user interface. Business users select and work on process instances from a task list and
collaborate with one another using WebCenters chat. A true enterprise portal, portlets are
easily added to the portal without code (JSR 168), the portlets added are able to easily
communicate with one another (JSR 286) and users can add their own applications onto the
portal. Social media discussions, announcements, IM, Blog and Wiki are included as well.

Through WebCenter portal, end users can also be granted access to view, create and modify
process models.

For customers without a portal implementation, the task list can also be exposed using a web-
based Workspace tool or through Oracle BPMs API.

Content Management
The purpose of content management is to manage, version and view files that end users upload
based on the individuals role and permissions. When used with BPM, content management
transparently associates files with specific work items flowing through processes. Content
managements ability to seamlessly upload and version the files associated with work items is a
key element of most BPM projects.

17
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 While IBM Business Process Manager has a limited
Differences:
capability to store documents, it does not include full
IBM Business Process Manager featured content management software. Although
does not include content IBM BPM can integrate to content management
management software, which software packages that use Content Management
must be licensed separately. Interoperability Services (CMIS) protocol, the content
Oracle BPM Suite includes management software is a separate purchase.
content management within
Oracle WebCenter Content is packaged with Oracle
the product.
BPM Suite and has out-of-the-box integration with the
product. If a customer has an existing content
management software solution, it can be integrated with Oracle BPM using the content
management softwares API.

Case Management
Most BPM vendors have recently added case management into their products. Using case
management, knowledge workers are able to create, manage, maintain and share a case. A
case is a collection of tasks, information, documents and decisions that are made during its
lifespan. Instead of a work item flowing through a pre-determined or deterministic process, a
case can be created to dynamically invoke several
Differences:
different processes, which are managed by a business
IBM Business Process Manager rule. Individual case workers can invoke sub-cases
does not include case along the way.
management and is included in
another IBM product. Although included in several BPM tools, case
managements practical use will remain dependent on
Oracle BPM Suite includes case the level of BPM maturity inside an organization and it
management within the
will remain limited until there is a more widespread
product with no extra charge.
need for ad-hoc and custom case solutions.

IBM Business Process Manager does not have an integrated case management solution, and a
separate product called IBM Case Manager must instead be purchased and custom integrated.
Where IBM Business Process Manager originated from IBMs Lombardi acquisition, IBM Case
Manager is based on the BPM product it acquired in an earlier acquisition called FileNet. While
FileNets content management software might prove useful in a cases lifecycle, not including
case management functionality with IBM Business Process Manager does not make sense to
customers. IBM customers wanting both case management and BPM must purchase two
different products from two different sales teams and two different development runtime
environments. IBMs case management solution entails a steep learning curve and is expensive
to acquire and implement.

18
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Oracle BPM includes the Adaptive Case Management (ACM) product at no additional charge.
Developers define the different processes, tasks, milestones and the underlying business rules
that form a case using Oracle BPM Studio. Instead of viewing the individual granular pieces of a
case, end-users view the overall cases at runtime using Oracle BPMs Case Space tool inside of
Process Spaces.

III. Analysis and Monitoring

Process Monitoring
For business executives and managers, one of the most significant problems with enterprise
software has been the scarcity of meaningful reports that represent the flood of underlying
data. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) abstracts the raw data and presents meaningful
views of easily understood graphical charts designed in the BAM product. Authorized end-users
can view graphical reports that display the current status or past status of KPIs and service level
agreements (SLA). Monitoring can be made active by
Differences:
setting thresholds and then used to automatically send
IBM BPM only monitors and notifications to workers when a threshold is about to
displays process related be reached (e.g. automatically notify a manager and
metrics. escalate a work items priority when its SLA is about to
expire).
Oracle BPM includes Oracle
BAM, which can monitor events Both IBM BPM and Oracle BPM gather process
from both inside and outside of performance and KPI metrics as work items flow
Oracle BPM.
through the processes. Based on process, activity and
people performance times and the business indicator
KPIs built into the process, pre-built reports display the aggregated information to end users.
Additional reports can be constructed by business users in both BPM tools.

In addition to the process analytics included in both products, Oracle BPM also includes Oracle
BAM. Oracle BAM is not limited to displaying process KPIs from within the BPM Workspace and
can also be used by other applications. It can display not only process information but also
event feeds from outside of Oracle BPM to create a complete picture of the status of the
business.

Oracle BAM charts are loosely coupled with Oracle BPM. This means that Oracle BAM charts
can be displayed from within Oracle BPM Spaces and Workspace as well as from Oracle BAMs
standalone web application or other applications. Additionally, Oracle BAM can be used to
automatically trigger both BPM and non-BPM related events when a threshold is reached (e.g.,
to start or interrupt or escalate a work item).

19
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Process Intelligence
While BAM tools display pie and bar charts that are populated as instances flow through
processes, some BPM tools also use process intelligence that provides sophisticated real-time
analytics to improve the decisions that are being made. Based on the metrics input, processes
are capable of continuing to improve their decisions or suggestions to end-users over time.

Sometimes referred to as intelligent business operations, this enables:

Real-time awareness of the actions that should be taken. Cases previously sent to
business users to analyze or approve can instead be handled without human
intervention.
Visibility of events occurring throughout the enterprise and the changes needed.
Faster and better decisions to help drive revenue, decrease cost and improve customer
satisfaction.
Improved compliance and fraud detection.

IBM Business Process Manager does not have a tool with this capability. With Oracle BPM,
Oracles Real-time Decisions (RTD) add-on product is used to automatically make these types of
decisions and provide real-time recommendations. Because RTD is loosely coupled with Oracle
BPM, it can add value to the entire enterprise outside of a BPM work item or process context.
The metrics input can come from either inside or outside of BPM processes, and they can
expose their decisions to both BPM processes as well as an enterprises other applications and
web forms.

IV. Technical Components and Capabilities

Runtime Architecture and Tools

While some aspects of the runtime architecture of the IBM Business Process Manager and
Oracle BPM products appear similar, there are significant differences in the out-of-the-box
functionality between the two products.

20
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 IBM Business Process Manager Architecture

Oracle Business Process Management Architecture

Oracle BPM includes the key features customers want and need on BPM projects at no
additional charge. Software components missing in IBM Business Process Manager that must
be purchased separately include BAM, content management, case management and a true
portal. In contrast, Oracle BAM, WebCenter Content for document management, Oracle

21
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
WebCenter Portal, Adaptive Case Management, and data modeling are included out-of-the-
box.

IBM BPMs Integration Designer provided with its Advanced Edition is not tightly integrated
with the rest of the IBM BPM architecture. Unlike IBMs Process Designer tool which adds
every artifact immediately to Process Centers BPM Repository database when a project is
saved, Integration Designer stores artifacts on a developers local machine. This has two
disadvantages:

In order to do any work, developers using Process Designer must always be connected
to Process Server via a fast and reliable network connection.
Developers using Integration Designer have to manually push their work to Process
Server.

With Oracle BPM, Oracle BPM Studio is the one tool that developers use to create and modify
processes and web forms. The same developer using Studio can also expose services and
create new services. Once a service exists, a developer using Studio can then integrate the
service directly into a BPMN process using a service activity or through a BPEL processs
orchestrated service.

IBM Integration Designers ability to create and expose services is similar to Oracle BPM
Studios, but it is only available at an additional charge with IBM BPM Advanced Edition.
Customers who purchase the Advanced Edition still tend to avoid using Integration Designer
because it is a very difficult tool to use, and unlike
Differences:
Oracle BPM Studio, requires deep technical skills.
IBM BPMs architecture is not IBM Process Servers integration and execution of
cohesive. The core BPM engine BPMN and BPEL processes is still a work in progress.
executes using interpreted
As IBM Business Process Manager work item instances
code read from database
tables. travel through processes at runtime, execution occurs
in two dissimilar ways. Process Designer BPMN
Oracle BPM projects are processes execute using interpreted code read from
executed natively as compiled
the BPM Repository database. The services and BPEL
Java EE composites improving
its ability to scale and require processes created in IBMs Integration Designer, on the
less hardware and software to other hand, are deployed on Process Server as EAR files
run. and are executed as compiled code on the application
server. The overhead of BPMN process interpreted
execution and its frequent database access adversely affects IBM Business Process Managers
performance and limits its scalability. As a result, IBM Business Process Manager projects
require additional hardware and software when compared to Oracle BPM projects.

22
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Oracle BPMs runtime architecture handles process execution more efficiently. First, each
Oracle BPM project, is deployed as a composite EAR file and runs in a compiled manner.
Second, a dedicated BPMN service engine directly executes BPMN models at runtime and a
separate dedicated BPEL service engine executes BPEL process models. Work is offloaded from
the engines because the two have a common process core that handles the services shared by
both BPMN and BPEL processes (e.g., scheduling alarms, storing instance information in the
database and when services need to be invoked). This separate BPMN engine also means that
BPMN processes do not need to be converted to BPEL at runtime. Each type of process is
executed natively and the underlying Service Component Architecture (SCA) server optimizes
and eliminates the overhead and performance issues that would otherwise occur with a mixed
process model execution.

Although both Oracle BPM and IBM Business Process Manager run on Java EE runtime
environments, IBM Business Process Managers Process Server only runs on an IBM WebSphere
application server. With Oracle BPM, customers are not locked into using an Oracles
application server. Oracle BPM runs on both WebSphere and WebLogic application servers.

Industry Packs / Process Accelerators

BPM vendors create pre-built industry specific or horizontal solutions using their products that
give customers a jump start on projects. IBM calls these Industry Packs and Oracle calls them
Process Accelerators. Built to speed development and to help customers adhere to industry
best practices, they are created using the BPM tool and can be deployed as is or customized to
meet the specific needs of a customer. BPM vendors provide both industry specific solutions
(e.g., financial industry client on-boarding application) and horizontal solutions (e.g., a cross
industry Customer Relationship Management application). They normally include BPM process
models, business rules, end-user interfaces, database schemas, key performance indicators
(KPI), dashboards and work item payload definitions.

Originating from its Lombardi heritage, IBMs Industry Packs focus on banking, telecom and
healthcare verticals. Its banking pack includes models for customer on-boarding, payments,
customer care, and risk management. Its healthcare pack has models supporting enrollment,
and employer and claims management. The telecom pack includes models for order
management, incident management and billing. IBM charges a premium price for each of
these packs and they typically are sold as templates packaged in with IBM consulting service
package offerings.

23
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 IBMs industry pack development has been intermittent
Differences:
and there is presently no team dedicated to creating
IBM Industry Packs were new packs or maintaining the existing ones. Because
created using an earlier version they were created with earlier releases of the product,
of the product. customers purchasing them should consider them to be
templates of solutions that will then need to be
IBM charges a premium price
for its pre-built solutions, which enhanced and upgraded.
are typically sold in conjunction
Oracles pre-built Process Accelerators became
with professional services.
available in 2012. They are built, extended and
Oracle BPM Process deployed using the current version of Oracle BPM.
Accelerators were created Each includes the processes, business rules, payload
using the current release of the
schemas, database schema definitions, user interfaces
product.
and dashboards needed for production.
Process Accelerators are
provided to Oracle BPM Created by a dedicated development team, there are
customers at no extra charge. both vertical and horizontal Oracle BPM process
accelerators. Vertical process accelerators include:
Public Sector Incident Reporting, Financial Service Loan
Origination and Business Account Opening. Oracle BPM horizontal process accelerators include
Travel Request Management, Document Routing and Approval, Internal Service Request and
Employee On-boarding.

Oracle provides the BPM process accelerators to customers at no extra charge. Clients make
the decision to use the accelerators as part of their solution or simply as a training aid to
illustrate best practices on an Oracle BPM project.

Cost Considerations
There are a variety of factors to be considered when comparing the cost of IBM Business
Process Manager and Oracle BPM that include software licensing, product configurations,
maintenance and support and support, implementation, hardware and training. Although
there are similarities, significant differences also exist due to the different configurations and
licensing models. The cost of the prebuilt BPM solutions provided by the vendors and the cost
of other software licenses must also be factored in as well (e.g., application server, content
management, case management, and business rules).

Acquisition
Comparing IBM Business Process Manager and Oracle BPM pricing can be challenging given
their different licensing models. IBM licenses Business Process Manager on a Processor Value
Unit (PVU) basis with a variable cost per core based on the processor vendor, brand, type, and

24
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
model number. IBM BPM customers are charged a premium if more powerful processors are
used. Oracle BPM on the other hand is licensed either on a flat CPU basis (with no additional
charge for more powerful processors) or on a per user basis.

Both products require an application server in order to run. IBM includes WebSphere
application server as part of its BPM license, but because Oracle BPM has the flexibility to run
on either WebSphere or WebLogic, the application server is not included with Oracle BPMs
license.

IBM Business Process Manager only offers very limited business rules and content management
licenses with the product and additional licenses are required if more robust business rule and
content management functionality is required. Robust business rules and content management
are included with Oracle BPM at no additional charge.

If case management is desired from IBM, a completely different software product called IBM
Case Manager must be licensed separately. Oracle BPM on the other hand includes case
management at no additional charge.

Two sample scenarios are shown below to help provide context and a comparison between the
pricing of these two products.

Maintenance and Support

Both IBM and Oracle have similar models for Support and Maintenance costs based on the
original license fee. IBM charges 20% and Oracle charges 22% annually. The first year of
maintenance and support is included in IBMs software license, while it is not included in Oracle
software license. But given the higher cost of the license for IBM BPM in the examples below,
the Maintenance and Support fees are correspondingly higher as well.

Scenario A: HP-ProLiant DL360 Entry level environment with room for growth primarily for
human workflow, business activity monitoring and integration usage but without case
management, content management, or a portal.

Cores 4
CPUs 2
Sophisticated Portal required No
Fully Functional Business Rules required No
Case Management features required No
Fully Functional Content Management required No
Named Users 100
Process Designers 5
Integration Designers 0
Case Management Users 0
Content Management Users 0

25
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 Small Entry Level Oracle BPM Standard Edition IBM BPM Standard Edition
Environment
Software license User based PVU based
Extra charge Oracle SOA Suite Industry Packs
optional add-ons WebCenter Portal Blueworks Live
IBM Content Manager (for content
management)
IBM Advanced Case Management
Operational Decision Management
(for fully functional business rules)
IBM Business Monitor (for BAM)
WebSphere Portal (for fully
functional portal)
Options included at Oracle Business Rules (fully
no additional functional)
charge Oracle Adaptive Case
Management
WebCenter Content Management
Required software Application Server, Database (both WebSphere Application Server
extra) (included), Database (DB2 included)
License Cost USD $347,700 USD $654,100

Oracle - This scenario would lend itself to a user-based license for Oracle BPM and
WebLogic Server. The initial user based license is USD $285,000 and is $347,700 after the
first year of maintenance and support is included. The five year cost is $598,500, which
includes the fully functioning case management, content management, and portal
capabilities at no additional charge.

IBM - The licensing fees for these limited requirements exceeds USD $654,100 for the first
year alone and just over $1.2 million for five years. Because it is mainly PVU based, there is
no restriction on the number of users. To include case management, content
management, and portal capabilities, the first year cost is over $2 million and requires the
Advanced Edition.

26
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Scenario B: Sun SPARC T5-8 Large, complex, full-featured implementation on a high-end
server configuration.

Cores 16
CPUs 8
Sophisticated Portal required Yes
Fully Functional Business Rules required Yes
Case Management features required Yes
Fully Functional Content Management required Yes
Named Users 100k
Process Designers 20
Integration Designers 20
Case Management Users 5,000
Content Management Users 5,000

Large Production Oracle BPM Suite IBM BPM Advanced Edition

Environment
Software license CPU Based PVU based
Extra charge (none all are included with Oracle Industry Packs
optional add-ons BPM Suite) Blueworks Live
Additional products (none all are included with Oracle IBM Content Manager (for
licensed separately BPM Suite) content management)
from BPM license IBM Advanced Case
Management
IBM Operational Decision
Management (for fully functional
business rules)
IBM Business Monitor (for BAM)
WebSphere Portal (for fully
functional portal)
Required software Application Server, Database (both WebSphere Application Server
extra) (included), Database (DB2
included)
License Cost USD $1,561,600 $5.3 million if Advanced Case
Management, Business Monitor
and Content Manager are not
included. (Otherwise, the total is
over USD $12 million, if these
components are included)

Oracle The standard list price for Oracle BPM Suite, WebLogic Server, and Oracle SOA
Suite for a production environment is USD $1,561,600 for the first year including support
and maintenance. The five year total for Oracle is $2,688,000.

27
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
 IBM The standard list price for IBM Business Process Manager Advanced Edition that
includes WebSphere Application Server, Process Center, Process Designers and Integration
Designers, and the separately licensed products that include IBM Content Manager, IBM
Advanced Case Manager, IBM Operational Decision Management, IBM Business Monitor
and WebSphere Portal for a large production environment is over USD $12 million for the
first year including support and maintenance and subscription fees. The total five year cost
for these products is over $38 million for a single environment. Although its functionality is
already included with Oracle BPM Suite at no additional charge, if the IBM Advanced Case
Management, IBM Content Manager and IBM Business Monitor are not purchased, the first
year price for IBM is still $5,283,280.

Implementation
Comparing the cost of an implementation between both products is nearly impossible. The
variation in skill levels, availability of skilled resources, project requirements and each clients
existing hardware and software environment make implementation comparisons difficult. In
both products, implementations can be achieved from installation to production within ninety
days given a narrow scope and highly experienced resources.

Regardless of the vendor, the best strategy to minimize the long-term services costs is to get
internal resources trained and involved immediately to learn how to design, develop, and
deliver solutions. Oracle tends to focus more on software revenue with only limited
professional services staffing when deep product expertise is required while IBMs leading
revenue source is professional services. When comparing both vendors, obtain detailed
services quotes for the specific project broken down by each persons role, responsibility,
deliverables, and rate. Finding consulting resources with cross-product IBM Business Process
Manager, IBM Case Manager, IBM Business Monitor, ODM and Content Manager will
significantly drive up the cost of the implementation. Expect to pay $175-250 per hour for
experienced senior resources from either IBM or Oracle professional services.

Training
Training is an essential element for success with any software product and BPM products are no
exception. Both Oracle and IBM offer role-based training that allows business and technical
resources to gain the knowledge needed to use their respective products. Oracle charges
between $700 and $840 per student per day for training. IBM charges between $560 and $780
per student per day. Below are the BPM courses listed by each vendor.

IBM Business Process Manager Technical Training

Course Investment
Developing Applications in IBM Process Manager Advanced I 5 days
Developing Applications in IBM Process Manager Advanced II 5 days
Reporting with IBM Process Manager 2 days

28
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
IBM Business Process Manager Business-Focused Training
Course Investment
Process Discovery and Modeling in Blueworks Live .5 days
Blueworks Live Account Administration .5 days
Blueworks Live BPM Change Management 2 hrs
Process Modeling with IBM Process Manager 2 days
BPM Process Analysis Methods 3 days

Oracle BPM Technical Training

Course Investment
Oracle BPM: Implement the Process Model 5 days
BAM - Building Real-Time Dashboards 3 days

Oracle BPM Business-Focused Training

Course Investment
Oracle BPM: Modeling 3 day model, simulations, BAM 3 days
dashboard training

Other Costs
When comparing the total cost of Oracle BPM and IBM Business Process Manager, a key factor
is that Oracle BPM bundles and integrates best-of-breed fully enabled products that are sold
separately with IBM. These include a content management system that can be used to store,
secure, and associate documents with the individual work item cases, an advanced case
management solution that facilitates ad-hoc and unstructured processes, a sophisticated
business rules engine, robust process monitoring, and a world-class portal that can be tailored
to user needs. The cost of IBMs additional product
Differences:
licenses significantly increases the purchase price and
Oracle BPMs license cost is in many cases cost as much or more than the BPM
significantly less than IBM BPMs. software.

Due to its performance, IBM The cost of hardware is reduced with Oracle BPM
BPM requires additional because of its superior runtime performance.
hardware to be purchased.
The pre-built solutions provided in Oracle BPMs
IBM requires additional products Process Accelerators and IBM Business Process
to be licensed that are included
Manager Industry Packs can significantly reduce
with Oracle BPM.
development time. Oracle currently offers its Process
IBM Business Process Manager Accelerators free of charge while IBM charges $59,000
requires 2x more BPM training per application instance or $354,000 per
than Oracle.
establishment or site.

29
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
Summary
Even though the different BPM products continue to evolve rapidly, the market is gradually
becoming more mature, and many of the products appear on the surface to have similar
functionality. However, a BPM product that is a perfect fit for one company might easily be a
very poor fit for another. Before beginning an evaluation, one should always ensure that both
the business and technical teams involved have evaluated their needs and have determined the
critical areas of functionality they require.

Although IBM Business Process Manager and Oracle BPM share a similar heritage, the two
products have key fundamental differences in functionality, integration and maturity.

Functionality Oracle BPM includes comprehensive features customers need on BPM

projects. Unlike IBM Business Process Manager, Oracle BPM includes: web-based
business user modeling, content management, case management, a fully functional
rules engine, data modeling, a web 2.0 portal, BAM and an entire portfolio of prebuilt
Process Accelerators.
Product Integration Oracle BPMs development tools and its runtime architecture is
very tightly integrated. The functionality in one tool is not duplicated in another.
Artifacts are not lost as they are transitioned between its tools. What the business and
what the developers see is always kept in synch. In essence, what you model is what
you execute.
Ease of use Oracle BPM is the easier of the two products to use in three essential
areas. First, the processes are modeled by the business and enhanced by developers in
an easy to understand common format that both understand. Second, both developers
and business people each have tools specifically built for their different skills and needs.
Third, the tooling required to integrate to back-end systems is much easier to use in
Oracle BPM.
Cost Unlike Oracle BPM with its flat CPU pricing, IBM BPMs acquisition cost increases
significantly as more powerful processors are used. IBM Business Process Manager and
its Industry Packs are significantly more expensive than Oracle BPM and its free Process
Accelerators. IBM has a steeper learning curve and more professional services to
integrate the disparate components. Lastly, Oracle BPM comes with features IBM
Business Process Manager either does not possess or includes at an additional charge.
Business User Empowerment Business people play a much more important role on
Oracle BPM projects. The dependency on IT is reduced because business users
participate in the full lifecycle of Oracle BPM projects that include creating processes,
user interfaces, business rules and even the information carried by the individual work
item instances.

30
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013
AVIO Consulting partners with customers to optimize their investments in middleware
technologies, process improvement initiatives and business strategy / IT capability alignment
efforts. AVIO offers full lifecycle consulting services from infrastructure to implementation,
instructor-led and virtual training and mentoring for BPM and SOA enterprise initiatives.

31
AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013