JBoss SOA Platform vs. webMethods Business Process Management Suite (BPMS)

JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform is great when you are looking at building more or less pure Java applications and SOA micro-services that may integrate with multiple external data sources. It is less useful when you are looking to build simple SOA applications that are simple in nature since the overhead associated with deploying as well as learning BPEL.

Incentivized

Where webMethods Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) is well suited is for any use case where there is a business process that can executed over a long period of time (days rather than seconds) and that traverses multiple business applications and/or multiple lines of business and requires manual input from end users to approve or action specific steps. It is not well-suited for any business processes that can be distilled into a traditional integration solution between business applications that does not involve manual end user input, these types of uses cases will execute more efficiently on a traditional integration broker or enterprise service bus style solution.

Incentivized

• JBoss is open source so the cost overhead to deploy and build application is very low.
• JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and its parent Redhat are reputed and well adapted in the industry so it is easy to find best practices documentation for complex deployments of JBoss middleware.

Incentivized

• Great process design user interface and usability
• Excellent tools for monitoring processes at runtime
• Business rules can be managed and updated by non-technical resources

Incentivized

• JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform is dependent and build for JEE/Java application so using a different programming paradigm will be much harder.
• There is still a learning curve to get familiar with BPEL making it harder to get an SOA micro-service up and running compared to a fully cloud-based service

Incentivized

• Pricing is opaque and higher than we'd like
• Some of the user interfaces are outdated and looking their age
• Require buy in from business to achieve return on investment

Incentivized

Redhat support generally is great and that is true for the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform as well. Even if you do not buy support from Redhat, you can reply on the discussion board and bug fixes via the open-source JBoss without much trouble.

Incentivized

Oracle SOA Suite (Oracle BPM + Oracle BPEL + other components) and IBM WebSphere middleware is most costly and suited if you are already using applications and other middleware components from these vendors. Mulesoft (Salesforce Mule ESB) is best when you need deep integration with one of Salesforce's existing products. JBoss and Apache Web Server are best when you do not want to invest infant CapEx/OpEx on license fee. Apache Web Server based middleware is best for simple SOA applications.

Incentivized

We found webMethods Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) to be the most feature complete product in the BPM market when we evaluated it against other products available in the market. It provides the most features, the easiest to use process design and simulation tools, and the most efficient runtime process and rules engine. Just be aware that its pricing reflects this position in the market, but you get what you pay for.

Incentivized

• Positive impact on the business by being able to use existing Java/JEE expertise to build and deploy applications and business services.
• Positive ROI due to no license cost for JBoss Enterprise SOA.

Incentivized

• Initial adoption of BPMS was slow and required buy in from the business, which was only achieved through upper management buy in applying KPIs down the line
• Once a critical mass of business processes being automated with BPMS is reached, any processes that remain manual will stand out like a sore thumb and the business will be invested to automate those remaining processes too, so adoption of BPMS is like a slow snowball effect
• Not requiring technical resources such as developer to design and build out processes is a pipe dream and impossible to realise. You will always need experts in the automation tools you apply in your organisation, and webMethods BPMS is no exception

Incentivized