Legacy Integration - BPM suite or SOA suite?

Question

We have an existing legacy transaction engine, all dedicated CICS, including security (ransactions, exits, etc.). Looking to externalize and consolidate some of the business logic away from it. Databases are Oracle and DB2 on the host. Not more then five instances total.
Definitely using WebLogic, not WAS, not JBoss. Hiring and training support team starting next month. Number of processes to be consolidated/transitioned is less then 40 total. Would you recommend BPM Suite or SOA suite with BPEL PM? Any benefits of one vs the other? We do have some BPM (AL) studio experience.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Someone from Oracle should step in on this thread when they get a chance to provide greater depth on the BPEL side and the strategic direction on both Oracle BPM and BPEL.
If you have Oracle Suite, you get Oracle Service Bus (OSB) which provides a platform that both BPEL and Oracle BPM can consume from. If you purchase Oracle BPM Suite, you get licenses for both Oracle BPM and BPEL and Oracle BPM processes can consume BPEL processes and vice versa. If you look at Oracle's plans for Oracle BPM 11g coming out sometime in the next 10 months, it appears to be a coexistance strategy leveraging the strengths of both Oracle BPM and BPEL.
My initial reaction was to say that it's not an "either/or" scenario, but the realities of training budgets and skill sets pretty much dictate that you need to focus on one or the other.
I've been doing Oracle BPM work for several years so recognize that although I am not biased, it might appear so in this thread. If you hit the BPEL forum, you'll get feedback from enthusiastic proponents of BPEL. Although I'd like to be, I'm not an expert on BPEL, but here's my take on your question.
Modeling
Oracle BPM was built with one process modeling diagram. It is simple, BPMN based and quick to learn. It supports the roles and the activities I need to build robust processes. As I hinted at in an earlier thread, I use the same diagram to explain the process to executives, managers, IT, SME and business analysts. As a business analyst, the tool is not complicated and can be learned in just a couple hours. As a developer, I use the same modeling diagram, but the tool profile I use is a robust IDE that lets me create the implementation details (objects, logic, integration to services and local testing). If I make a change as a developer, the business analyst can see the change if they look at the same process artifact (typically shared through a source control repository).
BPEL models are very useful for IT. Most times IT does not care or need to know about the roles / swimlanes and the BPEL tool does a nice job of not providing these extra artifacts. When the model has to be shown to non-technical executives, managers, SMEs and business analysts, it is typically shown in BPA. There is a round tripping interface between BPA and BPEL that the folks at Oracle can show you. Others may disagree, but I think there is a bit of a learning curve with BPA for business analysts. It has many different types of diagrams that let you see the different levels of decomposition and abstraction.
Logic
As a developer using Oracle BPM, I use templates and drag and drop to create much of my logic. Once I catalog an object it can be reused across multiple projects either by using the Project Dependency option or by importing the artifacts. I test my logic either by using the method editor debugger or at the process level.
As I create objects used in my logic using Oracle BPM, I can easily inherit attributes provided by introspected components. This means that if you have an ERP system with 138 attributes, you do not have to rebuild this object from scratch in Oracle BPM.
Probably one of BPEL's strengths is that there is not much coding inside the tool. Instead the logic mostly resides in the invoked components.
UI
End user interface screens and complex end user interaction with a variety of screens can be built inside the Oracle BPM toolset's WYSIWYG editor. The forms use the attributes of the objects described in the previous paragraph. There's a common misconception that you cannot have both client side and server side components invoked from the UI. This is simply not the case. You can use both client side and server side components to do cross field validation or provide lists for valid values.
If you're a JSP shop, you have the flexibility to instead create your forms using the Oracle BPM tag library instead of the forms editor provided.
The forms you build are automatically presented in the OOTB Workspace.
I believe BPEL uses ADF as the forms builder interface. Others on this forum or folks on the BPEL forum are far more knowledgeable on ADF than I am and can give you the comparison between UI builders.
Runtime
Oracle BPM can be installed on WebLogic. There is a common misunderstanding that Oracle BPM cannot be clustered. This is also not the case. The engine was first ported to WebLogic about 4 years ago and clustering is supported.
Integration
As I mentioned in the earlier thread, both tools can provide the integration you're looking for. Both Oracle BPM and BPEL can use OSB as the intermediary layer. Oracle BPM can expose and consume component directly if you do not have OSB.
Finally, Oracle BPM was built and architected as one complete solution with modeling, development, runtime, end user worklist and BAM capabilities built into it from the beginning 10 years ago. This integration makes the process modeling tool simple for both IT and business analysts to easily communicate using the same modeling syntax. Similarly, integration across the different parts of the product makes it easy to expose the components directly inside Oracle BPM's catalog (again - since you have SOA Suite, instead use OSB so you enable your SOA architecture). Even the end user interface (the Workspace) that exposes users' inboxes and displays the forms is OOTB and automatcally built for you by the tool.
Hope this helps,
Dan