Cloud-based BPM Model - Essay Example

Cloud-based BPM Model The Business Process Management (BPM) in its essence is a methodology that aims at managing the business processes in an efficient change-adaptive way, to better cope up with the continuously changing business environment. It is about identifying the internal business processes in order to model, analyze, optimize and manage them. The goal of adapting BPM methodology is to continually monitor and optimize these processes, which in turn will result in better utilization of the human, system and equipment resources. BPM involves activities, events and factors that can be interactively processed to deliver value to the customers. The organization of these activities alongside human/system factors through a systematic workflow, enable a business to gain not only an extraordinary visibility but the entire control over their daily operation (Dumas,LaRosa,Mendling and Reijers, 2013).It can be used by employees to troubleshoot anomalies in business orders or determine missing items as well. BPM Life Cycle The BPM mainly revolves around the cycling processes and begins at the model phase that provides the basic approach to continuous improvement of the business processes. All aspects of the BPM are implemented in their respective phase in relation to detailed activities involved in each phase. The first cycle begins with capturing the processes in model phase that entails the purpose for analyzing current business processes. The analysis in the model results to improved version of the business process, further design, implementation and evaluation. The Figure 1 below shows the lifecycle phases (Duipmans, 2012) Figure 1: BPM life cycle phases. Challenges BPM emerged not only as a management principle tool but also as a suite of software solutions to overcome the deficiencies in traditional business process applications. Although the BPM has been established to be very successful, serious obstacles persist in its enterprise-scale implementation. Variable such as startup costs, resource availability and technical limitation cannot be undermined. Premises are responsible for the installation of their own BPM. This is a challenge to business premises since the upfront outlay cost requires a lot of capital. Installation of the BPM comes along with extra cost ranging from Software license fee, updates to hardware maintenance. Since the BPM can only execute a finite number of processes concurrently, scalability becomes a challenge during peak demand periods. Such situation might force the enterprise to cater for an extra cost in expansion in order to meet customer demands. Modern technology is fast rising and every aspect of operating a business is made much cheaper each day. The rise of “Cloud Computing “is one of the major significant changes in data storage technology (Duipmans, Pires and da Silva Santo). Cloud computing has almost eliminated the need to keep huge chunks of data, software or IT professionals within the business premise (Kamara, Lauter, 2010). The technology provides fast, efficient and secure information and data storage services to companies and small businesses as well around the world. Cloud Computing Technology: Cloud computing has been generally identified as virtual servers available over the internet. Resources for data storage are increasingly becoming limited and vulnerable. Although most businesses exist with sole purpose (to make profit), they ultimately rely on data and information to keep going and therefore the need to store data. Due to the bulky resources needed to store data, businesses have resorted to networking technology (Cloud computing) to outsource storage for their data. Cloud computing therefore integrates virtual storage services to enterprises at a cost. Cloud computing has influenced new life to businesses since data, software and information can be securely stored without the risk of data loss over the internet. It is viewed as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to shared pool of configurable computing resource with minimal management effort or services provider interaction (Mell & Grance, 2009). Characteristics of Cloud computing; How does BPM benefit from Cloud Computing? Its application ranges from personal, small to large business enterprises. The ability of Cloud Computing to host data for business enterprises provides elasticity in terms of utility and dynamism. Businesses are able to scale down or scale up their operational needs at any time without straining its resources. Computational task can be easily handled over the network without concern or risk by the business. The services provided by cloud computing are available at any time and not limited by distance or geographical location (Sabahi, 2012). The principle of accessibility over the internet is a plus since it works on real time basis and data can be updated within minimal time limits. It is a cheap and reliable process both to the server side and to client side. All the business enterprise needs to do is to provide a small fee for the services while the server has only one application to maintain. This provides a cheap and convenient way to manage data. Cloud models: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) categorize cloud computing based on service models. The model includes: (A) Infrastructure as a Service (B) Platform as a Service. (C) Software as service. Fig 2 below summarizes these service models (Duipmans & Pires, 2012). Figure 2: cloud computing service model Cloud Based Computing. In the previous section, the concept of cloud computing was introduced as a model that enables users to have an access to a shared pool of hardware and software resources. In this section entails discussion of the integration of Business Process Management (BPM) with Cloud Computing. When moving the Business Process Management Software (BPMS) to the cloud, the servers, data centers and other resources expenses and liabilities can be avoided by simply hosting the business process on the cloud (Jiang, Le, Wang, Sun, and He, 2012). Cloud-based BPM Models the transition of BPM from local server to the cloud involves a series of models such as IaaS, PaaS and Saa. The following sub sections describes the integration of BPM to the various cloud computing models to create BPMIaaS, BPMPaaS and BPMSaaS (Invensys Skelta, 2013) Benefits of Cloud Based BPM Cost reduction: Migrating to cloud computing caries along a host of benefits based on operational cost. Business has the advantage of utilizing resources provided by the cloud instead of incurring extra expenses in purchasing systems and software’s. Wages for software staff is reduced in the process as well as time delays. Scalability running a business requires dynamism in terms of operation and structure. The cloud provides exactly the convenient conditions for system upgrade and flexibility. The computational performance of the cloud provides the extra capability to multitask and carryout complex process that would otherwise require additional resources (Jiang, Le, Wang, Sun, and He, 2012). Up scaling and down scaling can therefore be effectively achieved. Extra labor for software installation is minimized too. Continuity-Power failure and data loss can halt many operations in a business set up. Having the data stored in a cloud ensures data is protected and backed up and therefore loss can definitely be avoided. This eliminates loss of production continuity. Collaboration in a cloud environment gives your business the ability to communicate and share more easily outside of the traditional methods (Duipmans & Pires, 2012). Employees are guaranteed ease of access to common files shared by the business over long distances. The implication is that workers can do their job over the internet as well. This includes financial consultations over an outside entity to the business though secured means. Automatic updates: the business can update its data or information concerning the business in a timely and effective manner. Businesses operating on cloud have the advantage of using powerful tools with minimal effort while carrying out data storage or retrieval. The bulk of the process is provided by the cloud, which is solely concerned with how data is stored and distributed. Challenges to BPM in the Cloud: Though cloud computing has been associated with many benefits, the side effects cannot go unnoticed. Particular issues has risen concerning the integrity of data storage in cloud computing and the reliability of the system as well. Data security and privacy: Based on the system, data is transferred over the Internet and stored in a virtual database. The internet is vulnerable to cyber-attack as well as intrusion. This can result to data leakage in case of an attack since all the data are managed from data centers and transferred over the net. These risks are spread to several uses that transact and store information over the cloud and can therefore be disastrous in the event of intrusion or attack (Duipmans, Pires and da Silva Santo). Availability: In case of internet malfunction all user data are rendered useless since they cannot access them. Once information becomes unavailable, businesses that operate on Clouds compromise their operational functions and may incur tremendous losses in the process (Jiang et al., 2011). The vice has heavily affected several companies such as Google, face book and Amazon. Possible Solution Major challenges that face BPM based on the cloud can be managed if necessary steps are taken to counter internet vices such as attack and intrusion (Han, Sun, Wang, and Li, 2010). Though this may be based on the server side, most business must provide internal mechanisms to deal with uneventful occurrences. This may involve internal mechanisms such as internal back up for software’s and data as well as manual storage of important files. Several distribution options can be adopted by BPM to cater for the unexpected. Some of the methods are discussed below 1. Traditional Standalone BPM: This is where the enterprises’ software is installed in the end user system and the system can be supervised and managed within the business premise. 2. User-End BPM with cloud-Side Distribution: This is the kind of distribution where some components of the software is stored within the business premise and utilizes the internal infrastructure. However, processes that require high functionality and resources such computation are based on the cloud. This mechanism can be adopted to maintain high performance while remaining equally operational at all times. 3. Cloud-Based BPM with User-End Distribution: In this process, most of the operational functionality, data and software’s are based on the cloud with few portions hosted by the end user system. This is a kind of distribution that heavily utilizes the services provided by the cloud but maintains its own sensitive data within. 4. Cloud-Based BPM is purely based on the cloud and information stored within the data centers. Figure 3: On-premise and cloud processes relation For distributions b and c, the process engine is ether coordinated from the end-user side or cloud server side. Some activities are executed on the cloud while other process is located on premise as illustrated in the figure above. The activities are iteratively alternated, upon completion of the first activity, the result is used as the input for the second activity via the process engine. The problem is visualized in figure 4. Figure 4: Schematic representation of a process with one coordinator. Duipmans and Silva introduced a fifth pattern where the process engines are placed on both sides (user and cloud side). Consequently, the activities do not have to send data from the on-premise to the cloud, or vice versa, as long as the coordination can be executed by the process engine located on the same side as the activities involved. The extension of the model is shown in Figure5 .By creating separate processes for each of the participants, the amount of data that has to be exchanged between the cloud and on-premise is minimized. This approach can entirely overcome some privacy and security risks on cloud based BPM. As a result, less data communication and greater throughput is achieved. Figure 5: The fifth pattern Conclusion. In the last couple of years, Cloud-based BPM has made greater impact on the growth of business sector as a whole. Many companies, especially small to medium ones, have adopted the BPM in their structure of operation. However, the risks associated with such technologies still remain a challenge. Necesary solutions should be identified and establish to remedy the situation. The paper therefore iteratively examines varying sources of information to come up with concrete issues concerning privacy and security of the BPM through the various models. This is good faith to restore customer confidence and trust in the processes involved and services provided by BPM based on the cloud. References: Duipmans, E&, .Pires, L. F. (2012). Business process management in the cloud: business process as a service (BPaaS). University of Twenty. Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., &Reijers, H. A. (2013). Fundamentals of business process management (pp. I-XXVII). Berlin: Springer. Duipmans, E. F., Pires, L. F., &da Silva Santos, L. O. B. (2012, September). Towards a BPM cloud architecture with data and activity distribution. In Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW), 2012 IEEE 16th International (pp. 165- 171). IEEE. Duipmans, E. F. (2012). Business process management in the cloud with data and activity distribution.University of Twente. Han, Y. B., Sun, J. Y., Wang, G. L., &Li, H. F. (2010). A cloud-based bpm architecture with user-end distribution of non-compute-intensive activities and sensitive data. Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 25(6), 1157-1167 Mell, P& ,.Grance, T. (2009). The NIST definition of cloud computing. National Institute of Standards and Technology, 53(6), 50. Jiang, J., Le, J., Wang, Y., Sun, J., &He, F. (2011). The BPM Architecture Based on Cloud Computing. In Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling (KAM), 2011 Fourth International Symposium on (pp. 196-198). IEEE. Invensys Skelta. (2013). BPM on Cloud for the Enterprise. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.skelta.com/BPM-resources/downloads/whitepapers/Skelta-BPM-on-Cloud- for-the-Enterprise.pdf Accessed: 22 Mar 2014 Sabahi, F. Is Cloud Secure Enough. (2012) .InternationalJjournal of Computer Theory and Engineering.Vol.4,No 6 Read More