Business process automation provides a framework which supports a systematic data capture, description, homogenization, and consolidation within the sense of lean management as well as enables the replacement of manual activities by automation. Expected benefits are not limited to increased productivity, but also include improved quality as a consequence of the built-in monitoring functions. BPA is a part of a corporate IT strategy and not a stand-alone concept. SOA, being another building block of this IT strategy, is an ideal match to BPA.

Service-oriented architecture from the ecosystem perspective

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a set of design ­principles which make it possible to construct complex application landscapes out of a large number of diverse application building blocks. In its implementation, SOA consists of application building blocks which communicate among one another, ­offer functional services, or consume these services. SOA is not a new concept, either; it is the latest stage in the evolution of IT ­systems which includes object orientation, component-based systems, and design patterns.   

There are varying interpretations of the term SOA. In a narrow technical sense, it stands for the integration or orchestration of “Web services”, i.e., IT functional building blocks which have special Web interfaces. Other interpretations demand a very broad understanding of services which also includes the structuring of business domains and the cooperation in non-technical organizations.   

All of these interpretations have as their goal the manageability of complex systems by restructuring into less complex, reusable building blocks and services. The orientation to business processes whose partial processes and activities form the basis for concrete service implementations plays a special role here. 

OASIS, the “Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards”, goes even further and draws an analogy to biology. OASIS regards SOA as a kind of ecosystem: rather than imagining SOA as a complex machine, it can be more productive to view SOA as a cooperative ecosystem – a space taken up by people, machines, and services so that they can achieve their own goals as well as support the tasks of the entire system. Under certain circumstances, this viewpoint can give rise to psychological difficulties for anyone responsible for a complex company application because he/she has the legitimate claim to complete control over his/her system.

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