Cloud enabled business process management systems

City University London
MSc in Business Systems Analysis and Design
Project Report
2011

Cloud Based Business Process
Management Systems

Ja’far Railton
Supervised by
Bill Karakostas

23 September 2011

By submitting this work, I declare that this work is entirely my own
except those parts duly identified and referenced in my submission.
It complies with any specified word limits and the requirements and
regulations detailed in the coursework instructions and any other
relevant programme and module documentation. In submitting
this work I acknowledge that I have read and understood the reg-
ulations and code regarding academic misconduct, including that
relating to plagiarism, as specified in the Programme Handbook.
I also acknowledge that this work will be subject to a variety of
checks for academic misconduct.

Signed:

Acknowledgements

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneﬁcent, the Most Merciful

All praise and thanks are due to Allah and may peace and
blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah

To proceed:

I would like to thank my family for their patience and support – so
sorely needed by this incorrigible student, Jack of many Masters.

I would also like to thank my supervisor, Bill Karakostas, for his
guidance and support throughout, which greatly assisted in the
success of this endeavour.

Abstract

Although both business process management (BPM) and cloud
computing are relatively well-defined in the literature, their recent
amalgamation – in the form of Cloud BPM – is not. This research
contributes to the literature on Cloud BPM, firstly by defining its
terms, and then by considering its application and merits. The
methods employed are an exhaustive literature survey of the sub-
ject domain, followed by the generation of a hypothesis regarding
the definition of Cloud BPM. An online survey questionnaire is
used to test the hypothesis by collecting data from a target group
of BPM practitioners. The findings will be of interest to potential
consumers of cloud based BPM systems, as well as to vendors of
BPM systems, and analysts seeking to advise on the potential on
this emerging technology and how it might help customers realize
their business goals.
Keywords: cloud computing, business process management, cloud
based BPM, BPMS

Contents

Contents iv

List of Figures vii

List of Tables ix

1 Introduction and project objectives 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Important note on terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Aims and objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Applicable methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 Project contribution and supposed beneficiaries . . . . . . . . . 4
1.7 Organization of this project report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Literature survey 6
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Cloud BPM from the linguistic point of view . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Business process management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3.1 Defining BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3.2 The BPM lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3.3 The BPM discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.4 BPM technology: the BPM suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3.5 BPM and service oriented architecture . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3.6 BPM adoption and potential obstacles to be overcome . 14
2.4 Cloud computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4.1 Defining cloud computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4.2 Characteristics of cloud computing . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

iv

CONTENTS

2.5 Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.5.2 Vendor offerings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.5.3 Analyst point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5.4 Practitioners, bloggers, commentators . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3 Methods 33
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 Literature survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2.1 Literature search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2.2 Literature review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 Online survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3.1 Survey design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.2 General considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.3 Survey target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.4 Motivation of questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.4 Proposed definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.5 Evaluation of proposed definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4 Results 46
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.2 Literature analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.2.1 Description of Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.2.2 Hypothesis statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.3 Survey questionnaire results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3.1 Respondent-specific information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3.2 Defining Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3.3 Characterizing Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.4 Cloud BPM - pros and cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5 Discussion 61
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2 Discussion of online survey results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2.1 Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

v

CONTENTS

5.2.2 Defining Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.2.3 Characterizing Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.4 Cloud BPM - pros and cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3 Status of the hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4 Implications of these findings for the future of Cloud BPM . . . 68

6 Evaluation, Reflections, Conclusions 71
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2 Summary of project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.3 Evaluation of methods used and outcomes achieved . . . . . . . 72
6.4 Suggestions for further research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.5 Some personal reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

References 75

A Project definition for MSc in Business Systems Analysis and
Design A-1

B Survey Target B-1

C Online Survey C-1

D Summary of results for Likert scale questions D-1

E BPM Twitter list E-1

F BPM Findings F-1

G Online survey results summary G-1

vi

List of Figures

1.1 Organization of Cloud BPM project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1 The BPM lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Components of a BPMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Spectrum of business processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.4 BPM and SOA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5 Cloud computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.6 Bonita Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.7 Cordys cloud platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.8 Cordys Business Operations Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.9 Intalio|BPM Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

3.1 Cloud BPM project process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.1 Survey respondents by BPM role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.2 Survey respondents by company size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3 Survey respondents by company sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.4 Survey results – cloud BPM functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.5 The primary advantages of Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.6 Stated advantages of Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.7 Stated disadvantages of Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

5.1 Cloud ecosystem with BPM as hub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

A.1 Schedule of work - Gantt chant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-5

B.1 Post to LinkedIn BPM groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B-2

C.1 Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-1

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

C.2 Deﬁning Cloud BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-2
C.3 Characterizing Cloud BPM (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-3
C.4 Characterizing Cloud BPM (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-4
C.5 Cloud BPM - Pros and Cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-5
C.6 About You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-6
C.7 The End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C-7

viii

List of Tables

4.1 Survey results – Q1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2 Survey results – Q1.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.3 Survey results – Q2.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.4 Survey results – Q2.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.5 Survey results – Q2.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.6 Survey results – Q2.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.7 Survey results – Q2.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.8 Survey results – Q2.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.9 Survey results – Q2.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.10 Survey results – Q2.8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

ix

1. Introduction and project
objectives

1.1 Introduction
Business process management (BPM) is a mature business discipline that has
spawned a number of technologies to support it. Businesses now put “pro-
cess ﬁrst” (Ould, 2005, p2), and BPM technologies have evolved to support
a business user centred approach to BPM. These days, organizations depend
on BPM to enable them to adapt to rapidly changing business conditions by
enabling the design and execution of business processes that can span the en-
tire enterprise, as well as connect with systems external to it. Today it is the
agile who survive – those organizations who are able to adapt to change, to
innovate as well as continuously improve, and to continuously monitor and
analyze the results of these adaptations.
In the current web enabled business environment, processes in many cases
depend on the discovery and recognition of components that exist as web
services (Datamonitor, 2009) and BPM systems must facilitate this. Fur-
thermore, the current trend is towards increased emphasis on mobility and
collaboration as essential elements to support the agility and currency of busi-
ness processes. This means that BPM vendors are increasingly seeking to
augment their BPM packages by incorporating greater Web 2.0 type function-
ality. Cloud based BPM is one response to these new demands.

1.2 Problem statement
Although cloud based BPM is already a reality, it is an emerging technology
and still evolving; thus, it is not entirely clear what it is that BPM vendors

1

1. INTRODUCTION

are offering in the cloud, and how cloud based BPM can be evaluated as a
value-adding business proposition.

1.3 Important note on terminology
As will be seen later in the discussion, the concept of the provision of BPM
tools and systems using cloud computing technologies is referred to in vari-
ous terms, such as “cloud based BPM”, “cloud enabled BPM”, “BPM in the
cloud”, “BPM as a service”, “BPM on demand”, etc. This project proposes to
investigate the commonality of these terms under the umbrella concept ‘Cloud
BPM’.

1.4 Aims and objectives
The objective of the project is to propose a definition of the concept ‘Cloud
BPM’. The validity of the proposed definition will rest upon an evaluation of
its utility in further clarifying the key issues of the problem domain.
In order to arrive at such a definition, the project first presents a review
of the literature surrounding Cloud BPM, and analyses what vendors and
analysts intend through references to “cloud based BPM”, “cloud enabled
BPM”, “BPM in the cloud”, “BPM as a service”, “BPM on demand”, and
so on. This analysis focuses on two key aspects of Cloud BPM technology:
functionality and architecture.
Further objectives of this project are to identify: (1) any differentiating
features of Cloud BPM over on-premise BPM, (2) the advantages and disad-
vantages of Cloud BPM, and (3) future trends relating to Cloud BPM. Some
other questions that inform the research are:

• What types of BPM software are available on the cloud?

• Does BPM on the cloud offer any particular advantages above and be-
yond the advantages of SaaS considered generically?

• Are there any technical barriers to entry that apply to cloud based BPM
which are not applicable to other types of SaaS offerings, e.g. CRM?

• Does BPM have any characteristics that make it particularly well-suited
to being deployed in the cloud?

2

1. INTRODUCTION

In support of the above aims, the project also presents relevant background
information on BPM and cloud computing in general, as well as ancillary
technologies such as service oriented architecture (SOA).

1.5 Applicable methodologies
The research follows a sequential process (as described by Dawson (2009,
p20)):

1. Review the field;

2. Build a theory;

3. Test the theory;

4. Reflect and integrate.

This process, and how it is structured within this report, is represented in
Figure 1.1 below.

Figure 1.1: Organization of Cloud BPM project

The foundation of the project consists of a literature review which cov-
ers information from BPM vendors, analysts and commentators, as well back-
ground information on BPM, cloud computing, and enabling architecture (e.g.
SOA). From this body of information a tentative definition of Cloud BPM (the

3

1. INTRODUCTION

hypothesis) is proposed. The proposed definition of Cloud BPM is then tested
against the opinion of experts in the field, who were asked to complete a ques-
tionnaire about BPM and its application in the cloud, designed specifically for
that purpose.

1.6 Project contribution and supposed beneficiaries
Although BPM is a mature discipline supported by similarly mature tech-
nologies, the debate surrounding the definition of cloud computing continues
apace. As for Cloud BPM, the amalgam of BPM and cloud computing, it is
very much an emerging technology, with many vendors currently just begin-
ning to enter the market while others remain on the sidelines still. Such being
the case, Cloud BPM is not yet well-defined; consequently, the discussion re-
garding the merits of its application lack rigour. This project will address this
lack and thereby attempt to stimulate and further the discussion by proposing
a research based definition of this important, emerging technology, which has
the potential to disrupt the current BPM market certainly, and perhaps, the
enterprise systems market in general as well.
This research will therefore be of benefit to businesses who are considering
implementing BPM and considering buying BPM as a software or platform as
a service. The research will also interest independent analysts and commen-
tators, as well as other researchers in the field of IT strategy.

1.7 Organization of this project report
This project report is divided into five chapters. This initial chapter chapter
has introduced the project aims and objectives, and touched upon the meth-
ods to be employed in meeting them. The next chapter (Chapter 2) consists
of a literature survey covering the key issues relating to the project domain.
Chapter 3 goes on to describe the methods used to investigate the research
topic, methods which included a literature review and a survey questionnaire.
The results of these investigations are presented in Chapter 4 and a hypothesis
– a tentative definition of Cloud BPM – is proposed. The project hypothe-
sis is evaluated and further issues arising from the research are discussed in
Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes the project with a reflection upon
the choice of project methods and their execution, followed by an evaluation

4

1. INTRODUCTION

of project outcomes. A personal view of the project’s beneﬁts – and lessons
learned – is also oﬀered.

5

2. Literature survey

2.1 Introduction
This literature review presents an examination of the key concepts to be con-
sidered as a precursor to a tentative definition of ‘Cloud BPM’ (see 1.3). After
a short linguistic prelude, business process management (BPM) as a discipline
is discussed, followed by a brief look at how BPM is put into practice using
BPM software tools. Then, cloud computing is considered in its generic as-
pect. Finally, consideration is given to how Cloud BPM is viewed by analysts,
software vendors, and BPM commentators and practitioners. It is through the
synthesis of this information that a definition of Cloud BPM is then formu-
lated, as presented in Chapter 4.

2.2 Cloud BPM from the linguistic point of view
“Cloud BPM” is a compound noun comprising two elements: “cloud”, which
refers to the notion of ‘cloud computing’, and “BPM”, which in this case refers
to the software tools used in support of the management discipline known
as business process management. While business process management is a
mature, well-defined concept, cloud computing is less so. Although its origins
can be traced back to computing concepts espoused in the 1960s (Hugos and
Hulitzky, 2010; Wardley, 2009), cloud computing is a rapidly evolving concept,
as it incorporates the rapid advances of the technologies that support it, not
to mention the cultural shift that signals its ever wider adoption. Therefore, if
“Cloud BPM” is a term which is in need of a definition, it is so largely because
of the imprecision involved in the component term “cloud”.
Nevertheless, the term “BPM” also has some ambiguities attached. It is
important to distinguish two different usages of the term. On the one hand,

6

2. LITERATURE SURVEY

there is BPM – the management discipline; on the other, there is BPM –
the technology, the means by which BPM is implemented in the organization
(Viaene et al., 2010).
It is clear that “cloud (computing)” denotes a type of technology, so when
“cloud”is combined with the term “BPM” to yield “Cloud BPM”, it is under-
stood that “BPM” in this case refers to the technology by way of which BPM
is implemented, and that the technology in question is cloud based.
Notwithstanding the particular case of the term “Cloud BPM”, whenever
the technology of BPM is intended (and not the discipline), the term “business
process management system” (BPMS) is commonly used, and that is the usage
that is employed in what follows here. The analysts Gartner have in the past
used the term “business process management technology” (BPMT) to refer
to the software element of BPM, but now generally use the term “business
process management suite” (BPMS), which implies a comprehensive BPM
software package that provides a standard range of functionality (modelling,
deployment, execution, etc.) (McCoy, 2011). For the purposes of this project,
these two meanings of “BPMS” – business process management system and
business process management suite – can be considered synonymous.

2.3 Business process management
BPM as a management discipline has its origins in previous management dis-
ciplines such as business process reengineering (BPR), as developed in the
seminal works of Hammer and Champy in the 1990s (Ko, 2009), and Total
Quality Management (TQM) (Viaene et al., 2010). Ko (2009) also cites Dav-
enport’s seminal contribution in emphasizing the crucial role of information
technology in the implementation of BPR in particular.

2.3.1 Defining BPM
In order to understand what BPM is, it is fitting to begin with an appre-
ciation of what is meant by a business process. Weske (2007, p5) defines a
business process as a set of activities that are performed in coordination in an
organizational and technical environment in order to realize a business goal.
According to Weske’s definition of the term, “each business process is enacted
by a single organization [emphasis added], but it may interact with business
processes performed by other organizations” (loc. cit.).

7


Bearing in mind this definition of a business processes, business process
management can now be defined as:
supporting business processes using methods, techniques and soft-
ware to design, enact, control and analyze operational processes in-
volving humans, organizations, applications, documents and other
sources of information (van der Aalst et al., 2003).
So, BPM is a management discipline which may include the use of software
systems to support its aims.
In most organizations today, the management of business processes involves
the use of a software platform to orchestrate a combination of both automated
and human tasks. Such business processes are referred to as executable business
processes (Crusson, 2006). The generic software systems which use explicit
process representations to coordinate the enactment of business processes are
termed business process management systems (Weske, 2007, p6).

2.3.2 The BPM lifecycle
In order to understand both BPM and the technologies which support it, an
understanding of the BPM lifecycle is necessary. van der Aalst (2004) identifies
a BPM lifecycle comprised of four stages (see Figure 2.1), as summarized here
by Ko et al. (2009):
• Process design. As-is business processes are modelled in the BPMS.

• System configuration. The BPMS and the underlying system infrastruc-
ture is configured.

• Process enactment. Electronically modelled business processes are de-
ployed in BPMS process engines.

• Diagnosis. Using analysis and monitoring tools, flow times, process bot-
tlenecks, utilization, etc. can be identified and improvements suggested.
The BPM lifecycle may be preceded by other steps, for example, before the
process design phase there is the necessary step of process discovery, which
can involve the collaboration of many different stakeholders in defining the
processes to be modelled. However, once the lifecycle is initiated, the analysis
phase normally will lead back into the design phase in which process improve-
ments suggested in the diagnosis phase can be implemented.

8


Figure 2.1: van der Aalst et al.’s BPM lifecycle (Ko et al., 2009)

2.3.3 The BPM discipline
The aim of business process management is to improve the business perfor-
mance of an enterprise by changing business operations to perform more ef-
fectively and efficiently (Samarin, 2009, p1). A key characteristic of managed
processes is that they are adaptive, that is, information derived from the di-
agnosis of the processes is used to adjust and optimize the process in its next
iteration. This concept of “continuous improvement” (Palmer and Mooney,
2011) is inherited from other management disciplines such as Total Quality
Management, Lean Management and Six Sigma, but extends the concept to
include management all types of business processes, across the enterprise and
beyond.

2.3.4 BPM technology: the BPM suite
A BPM system (BPMS) offers agility and flexibility to enterprise software
solutions, in contrast to traditional enterprise software, which was designed to
provide process optimization through standardization (Jost, 2011). A BPM
system provides a business process abstraction layer over an organization’s
applications and software services (Hill and Sinur, 2010). Process centred
BPM initiatives change the entire notion of a business application because
a BPM enabled application responds to process context rather than routing
processes around the limits of technology (Palmer and Mooney, 2011). Once
again, BPM initiatives put “process first” (Ould, 2005).

9


A BPMS can support the entire lifecycle of business process development –
discovery, modelling, execution, monitoring, optimization – from design-time
to run-time (Kemsley, 2011c) (see Figure 2.2 below). BPMSs provide a com-
position environment and process modelling tools to graphically reassemble
existing functionality outside the suite (usually in the form of services made
available through the implementation of a service oriented architecture) to
create a process application. A registry and repository are required to locate

What is a BPMS?
these reusable assets in the form of services (ibid.) (see 2.3.5).

Performance
Management
- Dashboards Integration
- Analytics adapters
- BAM Performance
Data Business
Systems

ERP

Integration
Framework
Process Design
CRM
Process Modeling
- Flow
- Flow - Resources Process EJB
- Resources/costs - Data Engine
- KPIs - Business rules
Business

Legacy
- Simulation analysis - Forms
Rules

- Integration

Business IT Human
User User User User workflow

Figure 2.2: Components of a BPMS (Silver, 2006)

According to Linthicum (2009, p129), the other components of a BPM
technology solution are:

• a business process engine that controls the execution of a process and
maintains the state of each of the process instances,

• a business process monitoring interface [performance management] for
the monitoring and optimization of processes,

• a business process engine interface that allows the other applications to
access the business process engine, and

10


• integration technology that is required to enable the various systems and
services to communicate.

In some cases the integration function may be performed via existing mid-
dleware (e.g. an enterprise service bus) external to the BPMS, in others, via
integration technology bundled with BPMS solution itself.
According to the analysts Gartner (Hill and Sinur, 2010), a BPMS serves
to support the following key aspects of the BPM discipline:

• optimizing the performance of end-to-end business processes that span
business functions, as well as processes that might extend beyond the
enterprise to include partners, suppliers and customers

• making the business process visible (i.e., explicit) to business and IT
constituents through business process modelling, monitoring and opti-
mization

• keeping the business process model in sync with process execution

• empowering business users and analysts to manipulate a business process
model to modify instances of the process

• enabling the rapid iteration of processes and underlying systems for con-
tinuous process improvement and optimization

One can see that a prominent feature of the BPMS is its business centred
focus; it is a comprehensive tool that is intended to support the entire BPM
lifecycle – from design, to deployment, to analysis and optimization. From
the business users’ point of view, perhaps the most important function that
the BPMS offers is to provide operational transparency by making business
processes visible (Gilbert, 2010).
According to Gartner (Hill and Sinur, 2010), the top four usage scenarios
that drives companies to invest in BPMS are:

• support for a continuous process improvement program

• implementation of an industry-specific or company-specific process solu-
tion

• support for a business transformation initiative

11


• support for a process-based, service-oriented-architecture (SOA) redesign

In order to support these various use cases, BPMSs must provide comprehen-
sive functionality and the ability to integrate with the rest of the technology
stack.
In terms of processes, a BPMS must be capable of handling all of the
following (Kemsley, 2011c):

• straight through processes (fully automated)

• long running with human input

• dynamically changing process flows

• collaboration within processes

Business processes cover a wide spectrum, from structured, repeatable pro-
cesses to unstructured dynamic processes and case management, but processes
usually comprise a mixture of types (Kemsley, 2011b) (see Figure 2.3). Given
these different types of processes, new products are evolving and differentiat-
ing according to the type of process they focus on. Thus, we now see Case
Management software emerging as a separate category of BPM, which focuses
on the management of long running, unstructured document based processes,
which comprise a series of human tasks.

2.3.5 BPM and service oriented architecture
As has been mentioned, the building blocks of business processes consist of
services, well-defined blocks of functionality that are available to be orches-
trated into a business process. The availability of such services is dependent
upon systems which are architected in such a way that services, these discrete
blocks of functionality, can be located and consumed. This is accomplished
by way of a service oriented architecture (SOA). Linthicum (2009, p5) defines
service oriented architecture as:

a strategic framework of technology that allows all interested sys-
tems, inside and outside of an organization, to expose and access
well-defined services, and information bound to those services, that
may be further abstracted to process layers and composite appli-
cations for solution development.

12


Figure 2.3: Spectrum of business processes (Kemsley, 2011b)

The exposure of these well-defined, loosely coupled services is accomplished via
interfaces which rely on common interface definition languages (Papazoglou,
2008; Weske, 2007). Business users define the processes they need to imple-
ment, and the BPM system (with or without the intervention of the technology
team) identifies the services that are required in order to supply the needed
functionality. SOA is the means whereby these services are made available for
implementation. Ideally, the two concepts should be bridged into the same
platform but in the meantime developers can use Web Services platforms to
“wrap” existing application adapters and expose them to the BPMS (Crusson,
2006) (see Figure 2.4).
In the “classical” service oriented architecture, a service provider publishes
a service to a service registry. The service requestor then requests a service
from the service registry, which in turn replies with the information necessary
to allow the service requestor to bind with the nominated service provider
(Weske, 2007, p59).

13


Figure 2.4: BPM and SOA (adapted from Crusson, 2006)

2.3.6 BPM adoption and potential obstacles to be overcome
BPM is certainly being marketed as an important trend in business software.
According to Ko et al. (2009), as early as 2006, research by Gartner found BPM
systems to constitute a mature, established middleware product offering that
was predicted to sustain 24% annual growth in the market. However, many
commentators have commented on the slow rate of BPMS adoption (Dubray,
2007; Patig et al., 2010; Spurway, 2011), citing both functional and technical
factors in explanation. Spurway (2011) in particular accuses the BPM industry
of over-hyping the simplicity of BPM tools and the extent to which business
users can easily implement BPM solutions without the need for substantial IT
support in the overall process. Deane (2011) similarly disputes the reality of
a comprehensive business process solution that effectively bypasses IT.1 Silver
(2006) characterizes BPMS as neither business user centred nor the means for
a “clean hand-off” from business to IT, but rather, a means whereby business
and IT can collaborate on a process – throughout the BPM lifecyle. This is
perhaps the correct view, provided that the business process model being used
1
However, there is much anecdotal evidence that BPM-as-a-service solutions especially
do provide an opportunity for line of business implementations of BPM initiatives, perhaps
in the form of pilot projects, or simple, domain specific needs, and this aspect of cloud based
BPM may be an important factor in its favour.

14


can be easily shared and understood by both parties.1
The current standard for BPM modelling is BPMN 2.0 (Business Process
Modelling Notation). The goal of BPMN is

to provide a business process modeling notation that is readily us-
able by business analysts, technical developers and business peo-
ple that manage and monitor these processes. One of the goal of
BPMN is also to be able to generate execution definitions (BPEL4WS)
that will be used to implement the business processes. As such,
BPMN positions itself as a bridge between modeling and execu-
tion and between people that run the business and implementers
of systems that support the business. (Dubray, 2004)

Many commentators have questioned the degree to which BPMN 2.0 is actually
accessible to average business users (rather than specialists, such as business
analysts), and its ultimate suitability for the modelling of executable processes
of any degree of complexity (ebizQ, 2011).
Another obstacle in the path of BPM adoption using BPMN is the “round-
tripping problem”, as described by Silver (2007):

A process model created in BPMN or comparable flowcharting
notation could not be easily kept in sync with the executable BPEL
design throughout the implementation lifecycle. Essentially, you
couldn’t update the process model from the BPEL.. . . So the model
was not a continuous business view of the implementation. In fact,
it was still what it had always been – initial business requirements.

Some vendors tried to bypass this problem by focusing on human-centric pro-
cesses, leading to a new style of BPMS

in which executable design is layered directly on top of the process
model, in the form of implementation properties of BPMN activ-
ities. The new style does not create a handoff between different
tools (with different flow models, data models, and programming
models), but leverages a single tool shared by business and IT,
with business focused on the activity flow and IT focused on mak-
ing those activities executable. (Silver, 2007)
1
This “round-tripping problem” is discussed below.

15

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

However, this solution was a partial one at best. Dubray (2007) suggested
that (as of 2007) no vendor could claim that “a general purpose engine that
business analysts can use (even with minimal intervention from IT) to create
a solution from process models” had been delivered. Agreeing with Silver,
he claimed that the limited success that vendors had achieved was the result
of the focus on human-centric processes, “which for the most part fit well
the centralized view of a business process engine developed by these vendors,
especially when limited customization of and integration with existing systems
is needed (ibid.).”
In summary, problems with the complexity of the BPMN modelling no-
tation, coupled with the difficulties relating to the translation of models into
executable code (using BPEL) meant that vendors were faced with an under-
standable resistance to widespread adoption of BPMSs.
Indeed, based on the responses of over 130 Forbes 2000 Global companies,
a recent study by Patig et al. (2010) showed BPM adoption to be at a lower
level than what might be expected. The authors found that BPM maturity
in most companies was at a low to intermediate level, and cited the lack of
BPM in a SaaS format as being one possible factor contributing to the lack
of adoption, with the over-complexity of bundled BPM modelling tools being
suggested as another.
Although the adoption of BPM products continues to advance, the extent
to which business processes are utilizing cloud based services is still quite low;
a Gartner survey conducted in 2010 found that only 40% of companies with
BPM systems had even a small proportion (10%) of their processes utilizing
services based in private or public clouds (Gartner, 2011).

2.4 Cloud computing
It is difficult to agree on a comprehensive definition of cloud computing, as
it is a technology which supports a wide variety of use cases. As a general-
ization, Wardley (2009) characterizes cloud computing as “a disruptive shift
of the computer stack to online services”, allowing on-demand access to soft-
ware applications, development and deployment environments, and computing
infrastructure, on a pay-per-usage basis.

16


2.4.1 Defining cloud computing
A more comprehensive definition has been proposed by the National Institute
for Standards and Technology (NIST, 2011):

Cloud computing allows computer users to conveniently rent ac-
cess to fully featured applications, to software development and
deployment environments, and to computing infrastructure assets
such as network-accessible data storage and processing.

Some observations on this definition are in order. Firstly, as has become con-
ventional, cloud computing is here defined as comprising three service models
(see Figure 2.5):

1. Software-as-Service (Saas). An application that is hosted and delivered
to the customer by a software provider.

2. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). A development environment where a cus-
tomer can create and develop applications on a provider’s computing
environment.

3. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). An off-premise data centre environ-
ment. (ibid.)

Figure 2.5: Cloud computing (Source:
http://contactdubai.com/web hosting/advantages-of-cloud-computing)

17


Secondly, cloud computing services are “rented”, that is, the service is provided
and charged for on the basis of usage, either based on a subscription model,
or on actual usage, such as compute cycles consumed or data stored. Thirdly,
the services can be “conveniently accessed”, which effectively means by way
of any standard web browser.
NIST (2011) go on to caution that a comprehensive definition of cloud
computing is not possible, due to the fact that “cloud computing is not a
single kind of system, but instead spans a spectrum of underlying technologies,
configuration possibilities, service models, and deployment models”. However,
the following five characteristics are identified:

1. On-demand self-service. The service can be accessed by the user, as and
when required.

2. Broad network access. The service can be accessed from a variety of
devices, using standard network protocols.

3. Resource pooling. The service uses a multi-tenant model, using a combi-
nation of physical and virtual machines, assigning resources dynamically
according to user demand.

4. Rapid elasticity. From the customer’s point of view the service can be
scaled up or down on demand, as needed.

5. Measured service. Resource usage is monitored for the purposes of
billing, as well as for service quality purposes. (ibid.)

Finally, four deployment models are identified:

1. Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is for the sole use of the organi-
zation, although it may be managed by a third party and may be located
off-premise.

2. Community cloud. As above but with the infrastructure being shared
by a number of organizations with shared concerns.

3. Public cloud. The infrastructure is owned and operated by a provider
and made available to the public.

4. Hybrid cloud. A combination of two or more of the above types of
clouds which remain distinct, yet are bound together by standardized

18


or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability
(e.g. “cloud bursting” for load balancing between clouds). (ibid.)

In what may be seen as an indication of the rapid evolution and maturation
of the cloud computing paradigm, Linthicum (2009) proposes the to catego-
rization of cloud computing with increased granularity, thereby identifying 11
major categories:

1. Storage-as-a-service

2. Database-as-a-service

3. Information-as-a-service

4. Process-as-a-service

5. Application-as-a-service

6. Platform-as-a-service

7. Integration-as-a-service

8. Security-as-a-service

9. Management-as-a-service

10. Testing-as-a-service

11. Infrastructure-as-a-service

It should be noted that process-as-service here refers to ready to use processes,
that is, a set of orchestrated services that can be consumed as a component to
be further orchestrated into a larger process; it does not refer to a platform for
the the construction and management of business processes (a BPMS). Most
BPM cloud offerings are classified as Software-as-a-service or Platform-as-a-
service.

2.4.2 Characteristics of cloud computing
Architecture. Insofar as the cloud is preeminently designed to provide ser-
vices, the cloud shares with SOA a common foundation (see 2.3.5). According
to Rosen (2011), “the same service design principles that make a good SOA
service need to be applied to a cloud service: well defined interfaces, loose
coupling, proper decomposition, common semantics, etc.”

19


Use cases. Armbrust et al. (2010) identify three main use cases for cloud
computing: (1) when demand for a service varies with time, (2) when demand
is unknown in advance, and (3) for batch data analytics requiring short bursts
of high resource usage.

Advantages. The primary economic advantage of cloud computing is a re-
sult of the elasticity of the service: because the service is made available on
demand, there is no need to over-provision resources to meet peak demand;
similarly, there is no risk of under-provisioning and the resulting loss of rev-
enues due to the inability to meet demand (ibid.). Elasticity refers to the
ability of the service to expand or contract resources in the very short term –
almost instantaneously – according to load. Consumers pay for the resources
they are using, unlike on-premise resources which need to always maintain the
capacity to cope with peak demand levels.
Another advantage of the cloud model is scalability. With reference to
cloud services, scalability is often used synonymously with elasticity, however,
scalability may also refer to the ability of a cloud based service to facilitate
an expansion of business operations, not in the moment, but rather, over
time. Whereas elasticity refers to the responsiveness of resource allocation
to workload, and is characteristic of shared pools of resources, scalability is
a feature of the underlying infrastructure and software platforms (Gartner,
2009).

Concerns. Cloud computing necessarily involves trusting ones data to a
third party, so in addition to there being the normal concerns about data
security that are applicable in any context, there are also concerns about to
what degree the provider is capable of guaranteeing security, especially when
their arrangements may involve other third parties, for example, the utilization
of storage provision from other cloud providers.
Cloud customers also need to be aware of where their data might be stored,
as that has implications for data privacy, which is dependent upon the laws
of the country under whose jurisdiction the stored data falls. According to
Kemsley (2011, pers. comm., 12 June), “many companies are reluctant to
put their processes in the cloud because of the potential for not only security
breaches, but also government intervention in the data.”
Finally, cloud computing admits of all of the security concerns inherent

20


to large-scale systems, especially those that depend on “virtualization tech-
nologies that are still not well understood” (Chorafas, 2010, p206). Of course,
much of the cloud computing model is heavily dependent upon virtualization
technology.

2.5 Cloud BPM
In the preceding sections the two constituents of Cloud BPM were considered
is some detail. In the following section the focus returns to Cloud BPM proper,
beginning with a brief glimpse into its the origins.

2.5.1 History
According to Weske (2007, p25), “business process management mainly deals
with information systems in the context of enterprise systems architectures.”
Today, the nature of this architecture is changing as the needs of business,
and the nature of the business processes that support business, are changing.
The latest development in this evolution of enterprise systems architecture
is the growing adoption of cloud computing technologies, as described above
(Section 2.4). Cloud BPM, the marriage of BPM and cloud computing tech-
nologies, is the logical outcome of the need to manage business processes in
this new context of cloud computing. The more processes move off-premise,
the more compelling the argument for cloud based BPM becomes (Cordys
B.V., 2011a).
In earlier times, although in a free market economy services should be
most economically provided externally, for corporations operating at scale,
most services could be provided more efficiently in-house, saving the additional
expenses that would be incurred in locating, contracting, coordinating and
paying for such services from external sources (Hugos and Hulitzky, 2010, p1).
Today, however, because of the technological advances that afford increased
connectivity through web services and the like, it is increasingly the case that
services can be procured more economically outside the enterprise. Thus,
the modern enterprise itself has metamorphosed into a new incarnation, that
of the “virtual enterprise” (Hugos and Hulitzky, 2010). These developments
initially led to the outsourcing of complete business processes, but today, as
the services on offer become increasingly granular and accessible, more control
can be gained by orchestrating these services to compose business processes in

21


the form of custom composite applications that are flexible, agile and adaptive
(see Dubray, 2008).
The first glimmerings of Cloud BPM emerged around 2006 or so, when
vendors began to offer modelling tools that would run in a browser and be
accessible on the internet, announcing these as “BPM platforms offered as
a service”. However, these were not considered as tools fit for any serious
BPM purpose (Ghalimi, 2007). Writing in 2006, Khan stated that a “True
BPM”-as-SaaS offering should be capable of “managing and executing com-
plex, personalized, fully-integrated, mission-critical processes and have the
ability to adapt the processes on the fly to meet changing business condi-
tions”. In stark contrast, he noted that the BPM-as-SaaS offered at that time
was restricted to providing partial functionality, such as modules providing
modelling or documentation, templates offering simple pre-defined processes,
or simple hosting. Both authors were implying that SaaS BPM should include
the ability to execute processes. He also identified a lack of flexibility as being
one of the limiting features of SaaS in general and puts this forward as being
a challenge for vendors wishing to provide a BPM-as-SaaS.
By 2009, bloggers were beginning to ask what BPM in the cloud was,
and what it might be good for, writing articles with titles such as “BPM and
cloud computing” (Silver, 2009) and “BPM in the Cloud: one plus one is
more than two” (Byron, 2009a). Some of these articles are discussed below,
in Section 2.5.4.
By 2010, ten of the top 15 BPMS vendors (based on worldwide total BPMS
software revenue in 2009) were offering cloud-enabled BPMS platforms (Gart-
ner, 2010), with a much larger number of smaller vendors adding to the mix
of options available. Some of these offerings are discussed in the following
section.

2.5.2 Vendor offerings
In this section, overviews of a small sample of Cloud BPM products are given.
The products mentioned are from the vendors Appian, BonitaSoft, Cordys,
and Intalio.

22


2.5.2.1 Appian

Appian is one of the top vendors of BPM offering a cloud enabled BPMS.
A web search on “Cloud BPM” consistently has Appian Cloud BPM as the
first result, and this has been the case for the duration of this project (June –
September 2011). Their choice of the generic-sounding “Cloud BPM” as the
name of their offering appears to have been a good choice in search engine
optimization terms. Appian’s Cloud BPM webpage mentions decreased costs
as the principal benefit of this deployment method, and goes on to tout Ap-
pian’s security and reliability features. Clearly, Appian think that customers
are looking for cost savings (as well as rapid deployment timeframes), and are
most concerned about the security and reliability of cloud deployment.
Appian offers a cloud deployment that affords “the same functionality as
traditional on-premise BPM software deployments” (Appian Corp., n.d.), in-
cluding easy SOA integration using “packaged connectors for common system
interfaces and native support for SOA frameworks” (Appian Corp., 2011a).
Appian’s BPM products include SaaS and PaaS offerings, with PaaS being
the more popular option with customers, according to Samir Gulati, vice pres-
ident of marketing for Appian (All, 2011). In many cases, customers choose
the cloud deployment as a way of expediting the BPM implementation, and
switch over to an on-premise solution once the pilot project is working well
(ibid.).

2.5.2.2 BonitaSoft

Bonita Open Solution is a BPM system using open source technology to pro-
vide a fully featured BPM product including a BPMN modelling tool, a BPM
and workflow process engine, and an advanced, clean user interface (see Fig-
ure 2.6) (BonitaSoft, 2011). The Bonita Studio modeller allows users to choose
between a simple or advanced palette, thus determining which subset of BPMN
2.0 features are made available to the user. The modelling component includes
over 100 built-in connectors to build processes that include services derived
from a number of commonly used commercial and open-source databases,
ERPs, CRMs, etc., and also includes process simulation. The monitoring
component features custom dashboards and reports using custom-defined key
performance indicators (KPIs), as well as real-time activity monitoring.

23


Figure 2.6: Bonita Studio (taken from BonitaSoft (2011))

2.5.2.3 Cordys

Cloud based BPM represents only one aspect of Cordys’ grander vision of
creating a comprehensive, cloud based enterprise software platform, utilizing
state-of-the-art technologies to enable enterprise systems that deliver the fea-
tures and performance that the enterprises of today require. The cloud based
platform comprises three main functions: integration, BPM, and composite
application development (see Figure 2.7).
The Cordys Business Process Management Suite forms one of the main
components of a comprehensive BPM platform called Cordys Business Op-
erations Platform (BOP-4) (see Figure 2.8), which allows for the design, ex-
ecution, monitoring and continuous optimization of business processes, and
includes components such as Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Master
Data Management (MDM), Composite Application Framework (CAF), and
SOA Grid (ESB). Cordys also oﬀers a more lightweight platform, the Cordys
Process Factory, which allows SMB or departmental users to build and run
process-centric mashup applications on the Web.
The Cordys BPMS appears to have solved the round-tripping problem
mentioned above; Cordys claims that the platform allows business and IT to

24


Figure 2.7: Cordys cloud platform (Source:
http://www.cordys.com/cordyscms com/improving business operations.php)

work on the same process model, which always stays in sync (Cordys B.V.,
2011a). It is a completely browser based product which features highly respon-
sive AJAX based applications and oﬀers enterprise grade scalability, reliability,
security and standards support.
Some of the features of the Cordys BOP-4 architecture are described below
and indicate to what extent Cordys’ BPM platform is optimized for cloud
deployment.

• AJAX based applications on browser

• Model–execution synchronization

• Browser based collaborative workspace

• Stateful objects and stateless connections for near-linear scalability

• Integration-ready – SOA for both internal and external interfaces

• High availability with Cordys clustering technology (State Synch-up)

• Reliable transport support (JMS, MSMQ)

• Standardized on WS-Basic proﬁle compliance, WS-Security support, etc.

25


Figure 2.8: Cordys Business Process Operations Platform (Source:
http://www.cordys.com/cordyscms com/platform overview.php)

26


• Pluggable and loosely coupled architecture – internal component com-
munication also uses Web services

The Cordys platform has the ambition and vision to supersede the data-
centric ERP systems of decades past with an Enterprise Cloud Orchestration
platform that is process-driven, to provide agile and responsive solutions to
rapidly changing business requirements (Cordys B.V., 2011b).

2.5.2.4 Intalio

Intalio’s cloud based BPM suite is called “Intalio|BPM” and is legacy-free
software, a purpose-built cloud application. It offers

100% Web-based user interfaces, native multi-tenancy, a small
memory footprint optimized for virtualization, and support for the
most popular deployment options, including VMware vCloud, Mi-
crosoft Azure, and Amazon EC2, both on premises and on demand.
(Intalio, Inc., 2011)

The latter deployment options would enable single-tenancy deployments, which
some would consider to offer greater security of data.
Intalio|BPM is a full feature BPM suite. Its features “are organized across
a twelve-step cycle for business processes, from process discovery to process
control” (Intalio, Inc., 2011), including modelling, simulation, execution, mon-
itoring and analysis. Intalio|BPM is architected such that its “next-generation
process engine is capable of executing BPMN 2.0 processes natively, without
having to resort to any code translation” (Intalio, Inc., 2011) – into BPEL or
otherwise (see Figure 2.9). Intalio|BPM also supports complex workflow pro-
cesses and Adaptive Case Management scenarios, includes a fully extensible
Human Task Manager service compliant with the WS-HumanTask industry
standard. This service implements the end-to-end life cycle for human tasks,
and can be easily modified to support custom steps and transitions, while
taking full advantage of a powerful built-in Business Rules Engine (BRE).

2.5.2.5 Other vendors

Tibco consider that BPM in the Cloud “promises increased IT efficiency, re-
duced capital expenditure, and lower barrier to entry, while providing scala-

27


Figure 2.9: Intalio|BPM Architecture

28


bility with infinite computing power” (Tibco Software Inc., 2011). Pegasys-
tems (Pegasystems Inc., 2011a) offer in their cloud BPMS product all of the
functionality of their on-premise BPMS, as well as promising “unparalleled
security and reliability” and “out-of-the-box integration to existing data cen-
ters”. They also mention an advantage of the cloud deployment, claiming
that “multi-enterprise processes are ideal for cloud deployment, automating
the interactions between multiple parties and ensuring that SLAs are fulfilled”
(ibid.). But Pegasystems Founder and CEO, Alan Trefler, acknowledges the
reluctance of some users to trust their highly strategic processes and data to
the cloud:

Business users have become increasingly intrigued by the SaaS
model, but have told us they are not going to trust their mis-
sion critical processes, policies and data to an externally hosted
environment. (Pegasystems Inc., 2011b)

2.5.3 Analyst point of view
In July 2010, the analysts Gartner characterized “cloud enabled BPM” as
an emerging technology with potentially high benefits but with low market
penetration to date (Gartner, 2010). Cloud enabled BPM is defined as “soft-
ware that use BPM technologies to construct and optimize” process-centric
solutions in a software-as-a-service or cloud service delivery model”, technolo-
gies including “high-level process modelling tools, business process analysis
software, workflow, automated business process discovery tools, BPM suites,
business activity monitoring, and business rules management systems” (ibid.).
Cloud enabled BPM solutions may be provided as a platform-as-a-service
or embedded in software-as-a-service solutions. Two common use cases for
Cloud BPM mentioned are as platforms for collaborative modelling of busi-
ness processes, and the adoptions of BPMSs for BPM pilot projects. Perceived
benefits mentioned are cost savings and scalability, especially for midsize com-
panies who may not otherwise be able to acquire this technology. Cloud en-
abled BPM is also seen as enabling increased collaboration in BPM projects:

Gartner believes that extreme collaboration is critical to impacting
change and improving performance. Cloud computing accelerates
collaboration and allows BPM and SOA initiatives to have an even
greater impact. (Software AG, 2011)

29


The analysts Forrester mention the value of cloud computing to accelerat-
ing delivery and minimize risk (Kemsley, 2011a).

BPM-as-a-service will lower barriers to getting started with BPM
suites. Startup costs for implementing BPM suites can put these
tools out of reach for some process owners that dont already have
budget and executive support for launching their process initiative.
To prove initial value of BPM suites, smart process professionals
now turn to BPM suites hosted in the cloud often referred to as
BPM-as-a-service.

2.5.4 Practitioners, bloggers, commentators
Vendors and analysts both have their views regarding cloud enabled BPM, and
these two groups can display a degree of symmetry in their outlook. What
is really important to the future of cloud based BPM, however, is how this
technology is viewed by practitioners of BPM. The source of reference for these
opinions is a number of weblogs and the discussion that they spawn. In these
discussions the true state of Cloud BPM can be discerned – what Cloud BPM
is, what is promises, what it lacks – in short, the issues that the BPM customer
faces when contemplating the purchase and deployment of cloud enabled BPM
systems. Much of this discussion occurred around 2009, when the Cloud BPM
option was just beginning to become available.
Wainewright (2009) was one of the BPM consultants early on hinting at
the possibility that cloud BPM could offer a new future for BPM. Commenting
on the ebizQ article “How does using a BPM solution in the cloud differ from
using an on- premise BPM application? Which is better?”, he wrote:

However one might also ask whether, looking further ahead, a cloud
environment would ultimately change the nature of BPM because
of factors such as easier modification, more standardized integra-
tion and APIs, and the ability to do more process integration at
the user interface layer by taking advantage of standardization on
web client technologies such as the browser, AJAX, Flex and so
on.

Also writing in 2009b, Byron canvassed the views of BPM practitioners
with his ebizQ article, “Calling for input on BPM in cloud computing: let’s

30


clear away the fog”. Having done his sums, the results were written up in an
article entitled “BPM in the Cloud: one plus one is more than two” in which
he states:

One interesting thing about a “BPM in the Cloud” architectural
analysis is that the basic design of the BPM-enabling software
(or any other type of software in the cloud) could make a differ-
ence. Presumably software is more functional if it is designed or
re-designed to run in the cloud as opposed to simply taking advan-
tage of the cloud’s characteristics.

Byron goes on to substantiate this claim by citing the view of one vendor,
Software AG, that “the cloud lets BPM analysts and developers more easily
collaborate on process discovery (gathering artefacts, find out who does specific
work, identify who the process expert is, etc.)” (ibid.). In this view the
beginnings of the current focus on social BPM is evident.
Khoshafian (2011) notes the robust relationship between Cloud BPM so-
cial networking. “Business processes provide the context of collaboration, and
social networking supports and augments the various phases of the BPM con-
tinuous improvement lifecycle”.
Barlow (2009) points out that cloud BPM platforms provide all the advan-
tages that traditional SaaS offerings such as CRM and workforce management
systems provide, without the expected drawback of reduced flexibility. Since
Cloud BPM is a platform-as-a-service, the system is can evolve functional-
ity through the creation of process-oriented business applications, rather than
merely utilizing the limited, built-in functionality that SaaS software provides.
Sandy Kemsley (2011, pers. comm., 12 June), a prominent BPM consul-
tant, cited security/privacy concerns as “the biggest issue with cloud BPM”
currently. Vendors acknowledge these concerns too, Appian for example.
“Cloud computing promises lowered IT costs and faster time-to-value than
traditional on-premise deployments, but the cloud model is still new terri-
tory and many questions particularly around issues of data security persist”
(Appian Corp., 2011b).

31


2.6 Summary
In this chapter, the literature surrounding the concept ‘Cloud BPM’ has been
reviewed.1 This began with a discussion of each of the two elements of the
Cloud–BPM marriage – cloud computing and business process management.
Thereafter, Cloud BPM, as it has developed since around 2006 until the
present, and as evidenced by the views of vendors, analysts and BPM practi-
tioners writing on the internet, was discussed. Certain themes have emerged,
and these will inform the tentative deﬁnition of Cloud BPM that is proposed,
and then tested, in the chapters following.

1
For the sake of completeness, one other manifestation of ‘Cloud BPM’ should be men-
tioned. Linthicum (2009, p127 ﬀ.) discusses the relocation of “information, service and
processes [emphasis added]” to the cloud, rather than the relocation of a BPMS to the
cloud, and is therefore invoking the concept of ‘BPM-as-a-service’, mentioned above in Sec-
tion 2.4.1.

32

3. Methods

3.1 Introduction
The purpose of this research project, as mentioned previously in Chapter 1,
was to investigate, characterize and define “Cloud BPM”. The project followed
a sequential process, consisting of four main tasks: (1) review the field, (2)
build a theory, (3) test the theory, and (4) reflect and integrate. The subtasks
for each of one these tasks are shown in Figure 3.1 below. The research
data for the project was generated via the completion of two main tasks: the
literature survey and the online survey questionnaire, which are described in
the following two sections.

Figure 3.1: Cloud BPM project process

33

3. METHODS

3.2 Literature survey
The first phase of the project (the Review phase) was to conduct a compre-
hensive literature survey of the project domain. The results of the literature
survey have been presented in the the previous chapter (Chapter 2). The
purpose of the literature survey was twofold: (1) to gain familiarity with the
project domain, its issues and defining features, and (2) to gain an under-
standing of the key aspects of the domain, namely, the theory and practice of
business process management and cloud computing, all as a precursor to the
project’s aim of defining “Cloud BPM”. This understanding would provide
the foundation upon which a proposed definition of “Cloud BPM” would be
built.

3.2.1 Literature search
The first aspect of the literature search involved an intensification of the meth-
ods that the author had already employed in developing an interest in the
domain of the project in the first place; thus, the information provided by
industry analysts and bloggers on the Internet was reviewed, and references
to further articles were investigated. Twitter1 provided an important source
of information from both vendors and commentators. The author followed
on Twitter a number of prominent BPM and technology commentators and
analysts, as well as vendors, in order to be alerted of current discussions, up-
coming webinars or new products or features. A partial list of these is provided
in Appendix E. The websites of a number of providers of BPM technologies
were consulted, and many of them provided links to relevant whitepapers, as
well as slide presentations and previously recorded webinars.
Background research about BPM and cloud computing in general was con-
ducted by way of library searches, using the City University library website2 ,
and the British Library website3 , where a number of books and journals were
located and consulted.
1
http://twitter/com/
2
http://www.city.ac.uk/library
3
http://www.bl.uk

34

3. METHODS

3.2.2 Literature review
Once the main sources for the literature survey had been identified and gath-
ered, the literature review was begun in earnest. The background topics were
researched and written up, and the central topic of Cloud BPM was investi-
gated and presented. The findings of the literature review formed the basis
for the proposed definition and characterization of Cloud BPM (the Build
phase), which was then transformed into a hypothesis (as presented in Chap-
ter 4). The hypothesis was then compared with the results of the online survey
questionnaire (the Reflect phase). The online survey is described in detail in
the next section.

3.3 Online survey
An online survey questionnaire was the method chosen to test the hypothe-
sis (the Test phase) of the definition and characterization of Cloud BPM, as
suggested by the results of the literature review just mentioned. Survey ques-
tions were devised to canvass the opinions of BPM practitioners regarding the
topic domain. The target of the survey consisted of the members of BPM re-
lated groups on LinkedIn1 as listed and described in Appendix B. The survey
received 38 responses.
Because the survey elicited such a good response, and achieved a sample
size which could be considered significant for the purposes of a qualitative
survey, it was decided that the project would focus on an interpretation of
the data from the survey and dispense with the original idea of canvassing
the opinions of a small number of BPM experts, with the online survey being
a backup plan to gather data if an insufficient number of BPM experts were
available to cooperate in project. The survey provided a broad view of practi-
tioners’ perspective on Cloud BPM, which was what was wanted. The idea of
conducting interviews with a few specific individuals would not have furthered
this goal. The option of follow up was pursued, however, in two cases where
survey responses required further clarification.
1
http://www.linkedin.com

35

3. METHODS

3.3.1 Survey design
The survey was entitled “Cloud BPM - a survey” and was administered on-
line. It consisted of 13 closed questions – nine statements to be answered
using the Likert scale, two tick box questions, and two multiple choice ques-
tions – and three open questions. For the sake of clarity, and ease of response,
questions were grouped according to question type. Additionally, a section at
the end of the survey had questions to gather a minimum of personal infor-
mation about the respondents. A survey invitation was sent to a total of 16
diﬀerent LinkedIn BPM Groups, whose members were invited to complete the
questionnaire. Respondents were advised that a summary of the results of the
survey would be made available to them at a later date, should they wish to
receive this information.

3.3.2 General considerations
The intention of the survey was to gather data about the perceptions of BPM
practitioners about Cloud BPM – what it is and what advantages or dis-
advantages it might have. The survey was intended as (in the words of one
respondent) “a lightweight overview of current practitioners’ views of the topic
domain”.

Scope. The ﬁrst consideration was to produce a survey which covered the
topics that the literature review had suggested as salient.

Delivery. The next consideration was to produce a questionnaire that would
be fairly easy to complete and would encourage a high level of participation
from the target group.The online approach was deemed most appropriate as
it would reach a large number of potential respondents. At the same time,
targeting BPM related groups on LinkedIn would mean that respondents could
be assumed to be knowledgeable about, and experienced with, BPM tools and
methods.1 Google Docs was selected as the vehicle for the online survey due
to the author’s previous familiarity with it, as well as its simplicity of use and
clean presentation. A Google spreadsheet is easily transformed into an online
form suitable for a questionnaire.
1
Indeed, the level of insight revealed in many of the comments collected indicate the
validity of this assumption.

36

3. METHODS

Style. In order to make the results capable of easy analysis, a large number
of closed questions were used, with Likert scale type questions used where pos-
sible and forming the majority of the questions to encourage a high completion
rate. The closed questions were actually in the form of statements to which
respondents would respond on a Likert-type scale, ranging from “Strongly dis-
agree” (1) to “Strongly disagree” (5), with a (3) assumed to indicate a neutral
or undecided position – a valid response in the case of these questions and so
not to be excluded by choosing an even number of terms for the scale.
The assertions were mixed, some being positive statements, others being
negative statements, in order convey a degree of objectivity.Three open ques-
tions were also set, mainly to give respondents a chance to personalize their
responses. This was for two reasons: firstly, to draw out new insights that the
other questions may not have adequately addressed, and secondly, to give the
respondents the satisfaction of contributing a more personal view.

Respondent information. It was considered appropriate to obtain data
on three aspects of the respondents: (1) their relationship or role with respect
to BPM, (2) the size of the company they represented (if applicable), and (3)
the industrial sector that their company falls under.1 The motivation behind
these questions was as follows.
It was considered desirable to determine what role the respondents had
to BPM, and where they might fall within the business–IT spectrum, that is,
whether they were business users (management, end users), software devel-
opers (either working for customers or vendors), or working on the interface
between business and IT (e.g. business analysts), or any other role (e.g. aca-
demic). It has become a convention to talk about the gap between business
and IT and it was thought important to assess where respondents stood in
relation to this dividing line.
Especially in the case of respondents being end users, it was of interest
what sector the company operated in, as well as the company size, in order
to gauge what types of companies were interested in Cloud BPM, and what
types of processes Cloud BPM would be enacting.2 With regard to industrial
1
It was not considered that respondents’ age or gender was of any significance, nor their
country of residence or activity, nor their number of years of involvement in the problem
domain, and so these types of information were not sought, and this served to streamline
the process.
2
Business size rankings were based on the European Union definition (see

37

3. METHODS

sector, in addition to the using the traditional categories of primary, secondary
and tertiary sectors (corresponding to oil and gas, manufacturing, and services
respectively), a fourth category – “IT services” – was added, to allow a finer
grained picture to emerge.
All of the above questions were also intended to determine the degree of
variety in the sample, in order to gauge whether the results could be considered
representative of the target population.

3.3.3 Survey target
Members of LinkedIn BPM groups were chosen as the target of the survey
for the following reasons. LinkedIn is a social networking site that is focused
on the needs of professional business users. LinkedIn provides users with a
professional online presence, and allows members to connect with each other
(becoming “connections”) and follow their activities and discussions. Members
may also join groups. LinkedIn Groups allow LinkedIn members to follow and
participate in discussions around topics of interest specific to the group. Such
groups can usually be joined by membership only and for this reason anyone
reading and responding to posts in the group can be assumed to have a genuine
interest and some level of expertise in the subject domain of the group.

3.3.4 Motivation of questions
This section describes the the rationale and motivations behind each of the
survey questions, which were grouped into four sections.

SECTION 1. The first three survey questions, grouped under the heading
“Defining Cloud BPM”, were intended to derive a general sense of how respon-
dents perceived the term “Cloud BPM” as it is used currently. The literature
review had identified three main usages of the term and in the first question
these were suggested as possible responses. A fourth option of “Other” was
given, with a blank field provided for the respondent to supply their own
preferred definition.

Q1.1 What do you think is usually intended by the term “Cloud
BPM”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small and medium businesses).

38

3. METHODS

• the design and deployment of processes that utilize external web services

• any BPM tool (e.g. modelling) which can be accessed over the internet

• a BPM system that is deployed off-premise and consumed as a service

The third option is the most specific and relates to a comprehensive BPM
solution or “suite”, functionally equivalent to existing on-premise BPM suites.
The second definition is more general and refers to any type of BPM tool (typ-
ically, a modelling tool) that is accessible online through a browser. The first
definition refers to a completely different notion, that of constructing busi-
ness processes which incorporate externally sourced cloud services or services
combined as processes, that is, BPM using cloud services rather than a BPM
software system that runs in the cloud.

Q1.2 According to your definition of Cloud BPM, a cloud based
BPM solution must include which of the following components?

• process modelling

• process discovery

• process execution

• process monitoring

• process analysis

• process simulation

• Other:

The next question was intended to follow on from the assumption that
Cloud BPM did in fact refer to a comprehensive BPM solution consumed as a
service, and to determine what components such a solution would comprise.1
In other words, what sort of functionality would the respondents require from
a Cloud BPM solution? The three core components of BPM were included
– process modelling, process execution, process analysis – as well as optional
components such as process monitoring and process simulation. Other options,
1
It should be noted that of the three definitions proposed in the previous question, the
author judged the first to be the most prevalent in the literature, and the results of the
survey conducted substantiated this view.

39

3. METHODS

such as a process repository or process marketplace were not included for fear
of including too many tick boxes, but an “Other” box was included to cater
for respondents who felt that other options were essential.

Q1.3 Cloud BPM is simply a delivery model for BPM tools - no
more, no less. (It’s not about WHAT you get, but HOW you get
it.) [Likert scale]
The final question in this section was intended to test the hypothesis that
Cloud BPM is no different from on-premise BPM, only the method of delivery
is different. The contrary of this would be that the nature of the cloud platform
for delivery of BPM solutions either (a) enhances or (b) detracts from the end
product, functionally of technically. Most of the respondents agreed with
the proposition that Cloud BPM is simply a model of delivery, having no
implications on the nature of the product in itself.

SECTION 2. The next section of the survey was headed “Characterizing
Cloud BPM” and was intended to tease out some of the issues that surround
cloud based BPM solutions.

Q2.1 Cloud BPM is a solution which is attractive mainly to the
SMB market. [Likert scale]
The first question of this section related to whether Cloud BPM was pre-
dominantly a solution that appealed to small and medium-sized businesses
rather than large enterprises. The hypothesis here is that many of the bene-
fits of cloud based BPM are related to the minimization of capital expenditure
and initial outlay required, lowering the barrier of entry to BPM solutions.

Q2.2 Cloud BPM is not suitable for the design and deployment
of complex business processes. [Likert scale]
The next question sought to gauge the respondents’ perception of the ca-
pabilities of cloud based BPM solutions by proposing that Cloud BPM is not
suitable for the deployment of complex business process. The implication is
that Cloud BPM solutions are more geared towards the creation of mashups,1
or the design and implementation of comparatively lightweight processes that
1
Web applications that combine data and/or functionality from more than one source
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup)

40

3. METHODS

can make use of existing templates and built-in connectors to the required
services.

Q2.3 New BPM initiatives pursued using a cloud BPM platform
will attract a lower level of business risk than the same project
pursued using traditional, on-premise methods. [Likert scale]
This question was meant to gauge the respondents’ perception of whether
cloud based BPM is better suited for developing new BPM initiatives eas-
ily, without requiring the mobilization of a large amount of IT department
resources in order to implement pilot projects, in other words, attracting a
lower level of business risk for the project.

Q2.4 Cloud BPM entails serious - and in some cases, prohibitive
- security risks. [Likert scale]
Question 2.4 sought to gauge respondents’ perception of the level of se-
curity risk associated with a cloud based BPM system. The question was
worded to ﬁnd out if respondents felt that security risks were considered to
be of such a degree that they might seriously impact any decision to be made
about deploying BPM in the cloud.

Q2.5 One of the main advantages of Cloud BPM is its synergy
with ‘social’ BPM technologies. [Likert scale]
Question 2.5 sought to gauge respondents’ perception of the link between
cloud based BPM and social technologies that enable users to more easily col-
laborate in the design processes, as well as monitor processes that are running.
The hypothesis is that a cloud based BPM system is better suited architec-
turally for the provision of such functionality.

Q2.6 Due to its high strategic value to the organization, BPM is
not a suitable candidate for a cloud implementation. [Likert scale]
Question 2.6 aimed to test the hypothesis that since the business processes
that a company runs are of high strategic importance, due to the security con-
cerns associated with hosting the process information in a cloud environment,
a cloud environment is not suitable for the implementation of a BPM system.

41

3. METHODS

Q2.7 The full benefits of a cloud based BPM system will only
be realized when the application is purpose-built for deployment in
the cloud. [Likert scale]
Question 2.7 sought to gauge the respondents’ perception of the utility of
Cloud BPM towards introducing BPM initiatives easily and quickly, perhaps
on an experimental or pilot basis. The hypothesis here is that cloud based
BPM solutions can be introduced and trialled at a very low cost, without the
need to purchase new hardware or software, and without relying on the IT
department to mobilize for this change. In other words, Cloud BPM ban put
a BPM solution into the hands of the business users and allow them to pursue
pilot projects for a quick win, in order to demonstrate the efficacy of BPM
solutions in general.

Q2.8 The full benefits of a cloud based BPM system will only
be realized when an organization’s IT stack is predominantly cloud
based. [Likert scale]
Question 2.8 was intended to gauge respondents’ perception of whether
cloud based BPM was more suited to the management of business processes
when the rest of the IT stack was cloud based. The hypothesis here is that
cloud based BPM makes the most sense when the systems that it is interacting
with are architected specifically to operate in a cloud environment.

Q2.9 What are the main reasons for an organization to choose
a cloud based BPM solution over an on-premise solution? (Please
tick a maximum of FIVE reasons only.)

• quicker time to market

• lower start up costs

• reduced capital expenditure

• higher return on investment

• increased business agility

• elasticity of service

• reduced total cost of ownership

42

3. METHODS

• scalability of service

• better process collaboration

• Other

The last question in this section suggested some of the possible advantages
associated with cloud based BPM, and requests that the respondent choose
up to ﬁve main reasons. This question sought to identify the features of cloud
based BPM that respondents considered to be the most important.

SECTION 3. This section consisted of two open questions and was in-
tended to give respondents a chance to express their own views about Cloud
BPM’s advantages and disadvantages. It was expected that many respondents
would merely seek to emphasize certain points already covered in the survey
in previous questions, but it was hoped as well that some respondents might
provide new insights which the author had possibly missed. The questions
were worded as follows.

Q3.1 What are the main ADVANTAGES (business, functional,
technical, etc.) of a cloud based BPM solution? [Text box]

Q3.2 What are the main DISADVANTAGES (business, func-
tional, technical, etc.) of a cloud based BPM solution? [Text box]

SECTION 4. The ﬁnal section of the survey was entitled ‘About you’ and
was intended to gather relevant personal data relating to the respondents, as
well as allow them to comment on the survey.

Q4.1 Which of the below best describes your primary role with
respect to with BPM?

• business analyst

• management level user of BPM methods and/or technologies

• end user of BPM technology

• software developer

43

3. METHODS

• researcher or academic

• researcher or academic

• student

• other

Q4.2 What is the size of your company by number employees?

• < 50

• 50–249

• 250–999

• 1000–4,999

• > 5,000

• n/a

Q4.3 Which sector does your company primarily operate in?

• oil and gas, mining, or agriculture

• manufacturing

• services

• IT services

• n/a

Q4.4 Please use the space below to provide any additional re-
marks about Cloud BPM and/or to comment on this survey. [Text
box]
The ﬁnal question was intended to elicit comments from the respondents
about the form and content of the survey, but also to give respondents a chance
to bring to light any important issues that may have been omitted from the
survey.

44

3. METHODS

3.4 Proposed definition
The Review (literature review) and Test (online survey) phases of the project
were described in the above two sections. However, in terms of the research
process, prior to the Test phase the Build phase had to be completed. This
entailed the process of distilling the results of the literature review into a
proposed definition of “Cloud BPM” and the formulation of the project hy-
pothesis. The results of this phase, that is, the proposed definition of Cloud
BPM, are presented in Chapter 4.

3.5 Evaluation of proposed definition
The final phase of the project, the Reflect phase, focused on the comparison
of the proposed definition of Cloud BPM with the results of the online survey.
This is discussed in Chapter 5.

3.6 Summary
In this chapter the various phases, tasks and research methods used during
this project have been detailed. The research method followed a sequential
process – survey, build, test, reflect – and comprised a literature review and
an online expert survey as its pillars, with the proposed definition of Cloud
BPM and its evaluation representing their respective fruits.
In the next chapter, the results of the literature review and the online
survey are presented. Based on the literature survey, a tentative definition of
“Cloud BPM” is proposed, and the results of the online survey are presented
in a summarized form.

45

4. Results

4.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the results of the research conducted with the objec-
tive of defining “Cloud BPM”. First, the definition of “Cloud BPM” that was
formulated and distilled from the comprehensive literature review (see Chap-
ter 2) is presented. Following that are presented the results of the online expert
survey, which was devised to test the validity of the proposed definition by
comparing it with the views of experts in the field, as far as these could be
inferred from their responses to the survey questions.

4.2 Literature analysis
Having completed the literature review, the next phase of the project was to
to summarize the key findings of the literature survey, in anticipation of the
formulation of a definition of “Cloud BPM”. The key findings were listed (see
Appendix F) and working from these points, a series of assertions regarding
Cloud BPM was developed.
In the next section, a descriptive definition and characterization of Cloud
BPM is proposed. Following this, the definition is presented as the hypothe-
sis, clarified and expressed as a series of assertions that will encapsulate the
definition and characteristics of Cloud BPM. It is this series of assertions en-
capsulating the hypothesis regarding Cloud BPM that the online survey was
intended to test.

4.2.1 Description of Cloud BPM
Definition. Although BPM is both a methodology and a set of tools, Cloud
BPM clearly falls into the category of a technology: Cloud BPM is a specific

46

4. RESULTS

type of technology which fully supports the practice of BPM, that is, it is a
BPMS, the key characteristics of which are its on-demand availability and its
pay-per-use pricing model.

Market. Research indicates that Cloud BPM is of primary interest to small
and medium size enterprises, as well as for localized pilot BPM projects within
large enterprises. In the case of SMBs, the low startup costs associated with
Cloud BPM platforms mean that there is a lower barrier to entry to this tech-
nology. As for large enterprises, low startup costs mean that new departmental
BPM initiatives can be trialled, and in many cases implemented, without the
need to involve the IT department and its cumbersome procurement proce-
dures.

Functionality. Cloud BPM functionality should support all of the primary
phases of the business process lifecycle (design, configure, enact, diagnose)
and be capable of supporting both structured and unstructured processes,
and both human task centred and automated processes, or a combination of
these.

Delivery. A Cloud BPM system should be a SaaS or PaaS offering, with a
multi-tenant architecture that allows frequent and instant system upgrades.
A significant number of established vendors provide BPMS offerings that are
deployable either in the cloud or on-premise, with identical functionality, ac-
cording to customer needs.

Advantages. The main advantage of Cloud BPM is the lower startup costs
and the flexibility afforded by a system that is available as a service. A further
important benefit is the elasticity of the service provided, with the associated
cost benefits.

Disadvantages. The main disadvantages associated with Cloud BPM are
the security concerns that arise from the hosting of valuable business data
off-premise.

Future trends. Although there is no clear link between added function-
ality and cloud architecture at this moment, current trends point towards the

47

Cloud enabled business process management systems

Cloud enabled business process management systems

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