Red Hat Summit 2016 - Partners in crime from design to execution with Signavio and JBoss BPM (slides)

Today I gave, together with my colleague Steven Lewandowski, our talk on how we have been partners in crime for awhile now.

We showed that you can easily make use of the Signavio Process Editor in the Cloud while executing your work in the JBoss BPM Suite product as the backend engine.

SS43957- Partners in crime from design to execution with Signavio and JBoss BPM

One of the great strengths of Red Hat and Open Source is that we work closely with partners. Together we can do more is one of the core concepts at Red Hat.

Within the world of BPM process design, Signavio's Process Editor is innovative technology that you can use to start modeling and engaging your organization in improving operational efficiency through the development of optimal models, right away. From browser to iPad it's easy for any process participant to capture, document and share professional models. The next step is testing and execution your processes, this is where JBoss BPM Suite comes in with all the tools you need to flush out, deploy and execute processes that are delivered by the Signavio Process Editor. 

Are you ready to be amazed at the ease of use and availability of extensive tooling to support a transition from design to execution of your business processes? Join us for this hour of power as we demonstrate the strengths of collaboration and execution of Signavio designed processes with JBoss BPM Suite. 

For completeness you can find the slides here:

Enjoy!

Red Hat Summit Preview - JBoss BPM Session, Lab and Book Release

After the selection committee accepted a few of my submissions to Red Hat Summit 2016, it is now clear that the schedule has been finalized and I wanted to provide an overview of where you can find me the week of 27 June, in San Francisco.

Throughout the week you will find me at the Red Hat Solutions pod, which is a demo station specializing on the Red Hat Cloud Suite. You will be able to see the demonstrations around four use cases specific to that product and an overview slide show.

So what else is going on there?

Deal of the Day - Effective Business Process Management with JBoss BPM

Last week Manning launched the Early Access Program for my latest publication, Effective Business Process Management with JBoss BPM.

This provides you with a chance to purchase, at reduced rates, access to the first chapters that are available now in electronic format. You can interact with the author, that's me, in the authors online forum and give direct feedback on the content.

Over time I will continue to write, publishing new chapters roughly on a monthly schedule, so that you see the book as it evolves and changes.

I will also be editing previously released chapters as time goes by, possible incorporating some of your feedback!

So what is this thing called Deal of the Day?

How To Import Any JBoss BPM Suite Example Project

This tips & tricks comes to you after I have been asked the following repeatedly over the last few weeks by users of the JBoss BPM Suite demos:

"How can I import the projects associated with the various JBoss BPM Suite demo projects into my own existing installation?"

What this means is that users want to have an example project in their personal installation of the product without using the projects installation process. This is certainly possible but not totally obvious to everyone.

Below I will walk you through how the various example projects for JBoss BPM Suite are setup, how the actual BPM projects are loaded into JBoss BPM Suite when you set them up and why. After this I will show you how to extract any of the available BPM projects for importing in to any previously installed JBoss BPM Suite server.

Figure 1: In JBoss BPM Suite open the Administration
perspective with menu options, Authoring -> Administration.

Background on how it works

The normal installation of a JBoss BPM Suite demo project that I have provided uses a template. This template ensures that the process is always the same; download, unzip, add products and run the installation script. After doing this, you are done, just fire up the JBoss BPM Suite for the adjusted experience where you open up the Authoring perspective to a pretty process designer with the demo project displayed for you to kick off a demo run.

These projects have a demo template that provides some consistency and you can read about how it works in a previous article.  For the initial installation run of any of these demo projects, a folder is copied from support/bpm-suite-demo-niogit to the installation at the location target/jboss-eap-{version}/bin/.niogit. 

Figure 2: To import a new project, open the Clone repository
from the menu Repositories. This will allow you to bring
in any BPM project to your JBoss BPM Suite.

This folder contains all of the project and system Git repositories that are formatted for the version of the project you have downloaded. By installing this directory or complete repository, when JBoss BPM Suite starts up the first time, it will pick up the state I left it in when designing the experience around you using this demo project.

Get your hands on a specific BPM project

The problem I want to help you with in this article is to show you how to extract only the BPM project from one of these examples and import this into your own installation of JBoss BPM Suite.

The following list is the order you do the tasks, after which I will explain each one:

1. Download any JBoss BPM Suite demo project and unzip (or clone it if you like).
2. Log in to your own JBoss BPM Suite and open Administration perspective via menu: Authoring -> Administration.
3. Setup the new BPM project you want to import: Repositories -> Clone repository -> fill in details including import project URL
4. Explore the new project in the Authoring perspective: Authoring -> Project Authoring

Figure 3: Cloning a repository is how you import an existing
project, which requires the information shown.

I am going to assume you can find a JBoss BPM Suite demo project of your liking from the link provided in step 1 and download or clone to your local machine. I will be using the JBoss BPM Suite Customer Evaluation Demo as the example project you want to import into your current JBoss BPM Suite installation instead of leveraging the standalone demo project.

In your current installation where you are logged in,  open the Administration perspective as shown in figure 1 by menu options Authoring -> Administration. This allows you to start importing any existing BPM project. We will be importing the Customer Evaluation BPM project by using the feature to clone existing projects found in menu options, Repositories -> Clone repository as shown in figure 2.

Figure 4: Once the project has been imported (cloned), you
will receive this message in a pop-up.

This will produce a pop-up that asks for some information about the project to be imported, which you can fill in as listed below and shown in figure 3:

• Repository Name: customer
• Organizational Unit: Demos    (select whatever org you want to use from your system)
• Git URL: file:///Users/erics/demo-projects/bpmsuite/bpms-customer-evaluation-demo/support/bpm-suite-demo-niogit/customer-evaluation.git

Figure 5: Explore your newly imported BPM project in the
authoring perspective within your JBoss BPM Suite
installation.        

The most interesting bit here is the Git URL, which is normally something hosted online, but this project we want to import is positioned locally in our filesystem, so we use a file based URL to point to it. Click on Clone button to import the project and you should see a pop-up that looks like figure 4 stating that you have successfully imported your project.

Now you can explore the new imported project in your authoring perspective and proceed as you desire with this project as shown in figure 5. This will work for any project I have put together for the field that is based on the standard template I use.

I hope this tips & tricks helps you to explore and enjoy as many of the existing BPM examples offered in the current collection of demo projects.


[Note: This post was originally published on JBoss Middleware Blog.]

Early Access to Effective Business Process Management with JBoss BPM

I have been working in the BPM field for some time now, specifically focusing on the JBoss BPM Suite where Open Source meets rules, events, planning and processes. I started using JBoss BPM technologies while working in a financial institution and the content I published led to being asked to join Red Hat where the passion for these products continued.

The last four years I was focused only on evangelizing JBoss BPM Suite and the content I produced, the talks I have given and the articles I published led to many requests for a book focused on JBoss BPM products.

Early in November of 2015 I decided to listen and put together a proposal for my fourth official publication attempt, hoping Manning would be open to the idea of a book that was not only focused on developers.

There was a process that went back and forth as the proposal was discussed, then early in January of 2016 Manning started a proposal review where they then ask for input from sources in the wild that are knowledgeable of the topics BPM and JBoss.  At the end of February 2016, having collected enough positive input during their review process, Manning committed to the book and I started to write.

How to Set Up Your Red Hat Cloud Using Online Deployment Planner

Is planning and installing your next Cloud deployment giving you a big headache?

Are you losing sleep as you toss and turn, worrying about the compatibility of the components to be installed?

Well worry no more.

You can plan your next Cloud deployment and ensure the compatibility of the Red Hat Open Source components you want to integrate will actually perform as desired with the Cloud Deployment Planner by Red Hat.

Cloud Deployment Planner

You can select the various components that you want to install, then check the compatibility matrix to ensure your deployment components are valid. Below in figure 1 you see a screenshot of the Cloud Deployment Planner, which you can access online, that has various components selected that we wish to install.

Figure 1: The Cloud Deployment Planner with some of the Red Hat Cloud Suite components selected for installation.

There are options to select the components from the Red Hat Cloud Suite or Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure products. Each component includes the supported versions, in this case we have selected:

• Red Hat Satellite v6.1
• Red Hat Cloud Forms v3.2
• Red Hat OpenStack Platform v8
• OpenShift Enterprise by Red Hat v3.1
• Red Hat Ceph Storage v1.2

Feature Compatibility

Once these have been selected (at least two components), you can scroll down to view all of the automatically generated compatibility matrices. They give you a detailed overview of the functionality that will work within each of the components relating to their integration together as you deploy your Cloud. 

Below in figure 2 you will find a screenshot of a few of the generated matrices based on figure 1 shown component selections. There are more, just scroll down to explore yourself.

Figure 2: Feature compatibility matrices are shown here for a few of the selected components, scroll
down to see more when you explore this tool yourself.

Lifecycle Compatibility

There is also a lifecycle compatibility matrix that you can view as shown below in figure 3, which will provide a great overview of the lifecycle of each product component selected.

Figure 3: The lifecycle compatibility will provide a complete overview of the lifecycle of all selected components
that you wish to use in your Cloud.

After determining what you want to install, leverage the QuickStart Cloud Installer to experience an easy to use and fully repeatable Cloud installation. 

Do you know of a better way to ensure you are getting enough sleep while ensuring that your Cloud deployments are as painless as can be?

Red Hat Summit Preview – Discovery session series

When we go to the Red Hat Summit this year in San Francisco, we have planned to attend sessions, labs, evening events and even maybe a few good seafood restaurants.

Little did you know that there is a gem you might want to fit into your busy schedule, as it is a chance to meet some of the rock stars that are backing the  Red Hat Open Innovation Labs.

There will be a series of sessions hosted by experts to showcase use of Red Hat technologies and demonstrate the best practices with interactive white boarding. That is a personal touch session where you can interact with the storytellers and will be taking place in the West Lobby of Moscone Center on level 2.

These are going to be very informative sessions with the first 20 to arrive receiving a free gift, with everyone entered automatically to the drawing for a Red Hat drone, one raffled off at each session!

Here's a schedule and list of discovery sessions and with everything from Cloud, Middleware, Containers, Monitoring and Migrations:

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

• Migrating from TIBCO to JBoss Middleware (10:15am)
• Cloud migration: Building a bimodal infrastructure while migrating workloads (3:30pm)

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

• Migrating workloads to containers (10:15am)
• Reduce complexity and increase optimization with Ansible automation (3:30pm)

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Red Hat Cloud Suite

• A design model for rule- and process-driven solutions (10:15am)
• Easily exposing legacy systems to your mobile apps (3:30pm)

After any of the sessions, there will be the chance to meet with the teams presenting 1:1 in a separate area. A good chance to exchange ideas and explore your areas of interest.

See something you like? Look forward to meeting you there!

How to get your App Dev on with JBoss Travel Agency in the Cloud (video)

Install and leverage the JBoss Travel Agency
process application on Red Hat Cloud Suite,
using OpenShift as your PaaS!

I previously mentioned that nothing has gotten me more excited than the availability of the Red Hat Container Development Kit (CDK) to easy your application development with containers and OpenShift.

This kit has made it possible to easily gain access to a full, product based installation of OpenShift as you would interact with it in your application development scenarios in just minutes.

The easy installation project to get started with the CDK and OpenShift is on Red Hat Demo Central, as well as the Red Hat Cloud Suite example projects that get you started with JBoss applications containerized on OpenShift. Remember, with Red Hat Cloud Suite it's all about the PaaS baby!

Here today I am giving you an example of the JBoss Travel Agency booking process application that can be pushed with the same easy template you are used to, into the Cloud. First you will need to install the Red Hat CDK easy installation project. This is also available in a video to show you how to install the CDK in just minutes.

After you have done this, you can follow along here to get your very own local private PaaS based on OpenShift rocking the JBoss Travel Agency booking process application. This video takes you through the installation in just under six minutes.

This is what the Red Hat Cloud Suite will feel like if you are interacting as an application developer. Containers, OpenShift self service PaaS, JBoss middleware and much more are waiting for you to explore.

Red Hat Cloud Suite

Find out why you can't ignore the Cloud stack anymore and stay tuned for more application development in the Cloud including video demonstrations!