Architecture for Atop Applications

This chapter describe how to connect a regular Business Application (atop app) to available BPM structures and interfaces to add workflow capabilities to it.

The following pictures describe the general architecture of the interaction between the Atop Application and BPM Flow. BPM Model: is the Meta Model with all BPM support to define and create processes. BPM Web: is the web interface to interact with BPM Web. Atop App Model: is the model of the Business Application to integrate with BPM Flow. Atop App - Web: is the web interface to interact with Atop App Model. BPM Atop App - Web: is the web interface that operate as a bridge between both applications.

The BPM Atop - Web application is a package composed of classes that operate in the real of BPM Flow and the Atop Application.

In practical terms these classes are subclasses of different BPM Web components that extend some functionalities to operate with both applications. More details about subclasses here.

The Atop Application Model has to be updated and some methods added to be able to interact with BPM Flow. Users and Roles of Atop Application Model are the classes that require more changes in order to be integrated with BPM Flow. More details about Atop Application Model integration here.

Once the model and the interface is integrated with BPM Flow then Business Objects of the Atop Application are created as follow:

ATOP and BPM Integration

At design level there two ways to integrate a Business Application and BPM Flow and it is called integration strategy: - Parallel Integration - Contained Integration The integration strategy depends totally on the ATOP Application goals.

Parallel Integration In this integration each BPM Process Instance create (or update) collections of business objects and these objects has relations to each other. These relations form the Business Model.

Each Bpm Process Instance create or update business objects.

Contained Integration In this integration a business object contain a BPM Process Instance that is an integral part of the object. This gives the ability to insert a workflow inside a business object as a part of the object itself. In this case the BPM Process is a part of the Business Model.