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[news.eclipse.stp] Re: Is BPMN and BPEL the right choice for my problem? 
Hi David, see comments below:

David Wynter wrote: 
Hi,

I have a set of components that I use in workflows to basically do value
added ETL work with reported outcomes etc. It currently has a Web
interface and uses a FSM (blissed.codehaus.org) interleaved with the
Quartz scheduler. All data about the ETL reports, scheduling etc is
stored in the database, no files involved.
Please clarify what you mean by ETL exactly, I'm not familiar with this acronym. 

I want to now extend this to incorporate tasks for humans to handle
through dedicated screens in amongst the workflow. So time for a richer
graphical representation of the workflow. The BPMN modeller and
transformation to IM and thus to BPEL look like a good starting point. I
would replace the Quartz and FSM workflow with a BPEL execution engine.

I have read a lot of the material covering STP over the last couple of
days. But a few question have formed probably because I have not read
everything yet.

Apologies if my language is not precisely aligned with all the STP
buzzwords.

1. Since I have many instances of an ETL involving a particular pair of
input and output I need to have a clear display of which ETL we are
dealing with. Is the annotation extension to the task icon the correct
way of presenting these?
I suppose it would be correct to show your special tasks with an annotation.

2. Can the annotation be transformed through to the BPEL?
That would be a question for the STP-IM maintainers. My blind guess is that you would need to hack something to achieve it. 

3. Do the BPEL engines allow for execution of a component using the
annotation to indicate to the component being run?
I don't understand the question. Do you mean that you'd like the BPEL engine to execute your component because the task would have an annotation ? 

4. Since this is not a general business workflow is it acceptable to add
specific task icons for the specialized tasks we carry out (e.g. an ETL
task?)

You can do that in BPMN.


OK, it looks like you are trying to customize BPMN and BPEL to carry on some ETL thingy. Neither BPMN nor BPEL are extensible when it comes to executing, however you could probably represent an ETL task in BPEL and model it as pattern in BPMN. 

thx.

David