Business Process Execution Language, BPEL, is a complex language for defining software workflows and almost requires software like Oracle BPEL Designer. However, to understand information on Oracle BPEL Designer, one must first understand the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach to software.

Traditionally, software has been written in "stovepipes" where one company or one department in a company writes an application that does everything: receive inputs, perform calculations (a.k.a. apply business logic), and return outputs. However, with the increasing prevalence of the Internet, it is now possible to write an entire software application out of different pieces (called services), all of which work together to do what a single piece of traditional software might do. These services can be built by different areas within one company or they may work with services written by entirely different organizations. The best example of this is travel recommendation software. Instead of one company housing plane, hotel, and car information, SOA would allow:

1. The airline to have its plane ticket service
2. The hotel to have a room service
3. The car company to have a rental service
4. A fourth piece which would pull data from each service
5. A user interface so that users could enter data and get results

This can be a tricky concept to grasp as it is completely transparent to the user (who will never know if they are using a SOA or stovepipe application), but is generally considered to be a good software design principle.

There is one problem with SOA: the part about a piece which calls each service proved exceedingly difficult for computer scientists to perfect until BPEL came along. BPEL is an extensible markup language (XML) grammar which helps to define which services should be called, in which order they should be called, and what happens when one service returns an error or is unavailable.

So what is Oracle BPEL Designer? BPEL is as complex as the task it was designed to solve. Oracle BPEL Designer downloads, then, is a BPEL engineer's best tool to write BPEL code and make those services work together.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Have a solid plan for incorporating BPEL/Oracle BPEL Designer into your IT environment

Any Oracle BPEL Designer supplier will tell you that moving to SOA and using BPEL is not a small task. For some companies, the process of breaking stovepiped applications into smaller services can take anywhere from 6 months to 3 or more years. Undertaking any IT project like that is going to consume valuable budgets and can affect key applications. As such, it is not something that should be taken lightly.

I recommend: Plan. Then check the plan. Then review the plan. Then check the plan again. To have an idea of what you should plan for, read this presentation on Scribd or read the blog SOA@Oracle BPEL & ESB that was written by the company which Oracle purchased to enter the BPEL space.

Get information and training on Oracle BPEL Designer from Oracle BPEL Designer vendors

Oracle BPEL Designer distributors and other Oracle BPEL consultants understand the challenges a company will undertake as they move to Oracle BPEL Designer. As such, many Oracle BPEL Designer providers will offer training in BPEL, SOA, and Oracle BPEL Designer in particular.

I recommend: When looking at implementing BPEL, allocate money in your IT budget for training. UltimoSoft offers courses in all types of Oracle middleware, while FocusThread offers BPEL-specific training. See the Oracle website for info on downloading BPEL.

Consider BPEL solutions from companies other than Oracle BPEL Designer suppliers

If you have not considered other BPEL vendors, do not choose Oracle BPEL Designer just because of the name. At the very least try an Oracle BPEL Designer download. However, it is highly recommended that you consider other BPEL software tools before making a final purchasing decision.

I recommend: Survey the BPEL/SOA landscape. Investigate a number of different software vendors, such as the open source ActiveBPEL project and Microsoft, the king of software.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  It should not be understated that any BPEL project, with or without Oracle BPEL Designer, is no small undertaking.
• •  Due to their complexity, BPEL projects should not be undertaken without a designer tool like Oracle BPEL Designer.
• •  Oracle has made a significant investment in its middleware, including Oracle BPEL Designer. This means research and development dollars are being spent to improve the software and it means technical support will be available for it.