Avio Oracle Bpm vs Pega Comparison 1998344

8/9/2019 Avio Oracle Bpm vs Pega Comparison 1998344

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© AVIO Consulting, LLC 2013

Executive SummaryBecause of the different capabilities and approaches the various software vendors have taken,

Business Process Management (BPM) has become one of the most difficult software products

to evaluate. Along with RFP checklists, BPM software selections are often made based on

vendor demonstrations and, at best, hands-on proof of concepts conducted at a customer’srequest. Because the requirements differ widely between the business and IT, the grading and

weighting factors involved often make BPM product selections opaque, and companies are

often left unsure that they have selected the best product for their needs.

Pegasystems and Oracle are two leading BPM vendors who have taken two completely

different approaches. Because Pegasystems began as a business rules engine provider, their

BPM software product has business rules as its base. Oracle BPM Suite was designed from the

ground up to be a business driven, full lifecycle BPM product running on top of Oracle’s industry

leading Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform.

Based on feedback from customers and industry consultants familiar with both products, the

following factors combine to make Oracle BPM Suite the superior choice:

1. Ease of use – Oracle BPM is the easier of the two products to use in three essential

areas. First, the processes are modeled by the business and enhanced by developers in

an easy to understand common format that both understand. Second, both developers

and the business analysts each have tools specifically built for their different skills and

needs. The technical implementation components needed by developers in the tool

they use is masked in the business users’ tool. Third, although both Pegasystems and

Oracle BPM tools are simple for the business analysts to use, developers find Oracle

BPM’s tools for developers much easier to use and much more robust.

2. Service and application integration – Although often overlooked during software

evaluations, the integration to underlying services, databases and applications is an

essential element on almost every BPM project. Oracle BPM’s tool for services and

application integration is the best tool on the market today to accomplish this.

3. Monitoring and administration – Being able to view and manage the environment is

essential during the entire lifecycle of a project. Oracle BPM makes it easy for process

stakeholders to manage and optimize the business processes.

4. Cost – Pegasystems’s PegaRULES product is significantly more expensive than Oracle

BPM Suite. Oracle BPM comes with features that Pegasystems PegaRULES either does

not possess or only includes at an additional charge. It typically costs organizations at

least two times more to purchase the software license and implement a project using

Pegasystems PegaRULES. Pegasystems’s needs for consulting services are also higher,

and it costs seven times more to train a developer to use Pegasystems PegaRULES.



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5. Enablement – Oracle BPM Suite is based on the widely used industry standards that

both business and technical people are already familiar and comfortable with. Although

both vendors provide training, anyone wanting to learn how to use Oracle BPM can

download and install it from Oracle’s website at no charge.



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Evaluation MethodologyRecognized as an expert in BPM, AVIO Consulting has been asked by many organizations to help

evaluate and select BPM products through both product demonstrations, hands-on proof of

concepts and past project implementation experience. The result of these experiences has

been incorporated into this analysis.

The products were also evaluated based on detailed interviews that were conducted. The

interviewees, primarily developers and administrators, were selected based on their hands-on

experience with at least one of the BPM products, and in the case of some interviewees, both

BPM products. Each was asked a series of detailed questions that covered each product’s

business and technical approaches and the features of the product.

Overview of the ProductsBPM products are changing rapidly to keep pace with the demands of the market. As a result,

BPM is becoming more difficult to define and areas once outside of BPM are now fully

integrated in many products.

In its purest form, BPM is used today by companies to create seamless end-to-end business

processes. Using BPM, companies can handle the difficult challenge of integrating existing

systems, outside events, data, documents and human interactions. This means that people and

systems can have discrete activities inside cohesive processes that support the organization’s

business objectives, across different parts of the organization and its different applications. As

work flows through the processes, people have tasks automatically assigned to them at the

right time in the process with exactly the right contextual data they need to do their work.Similarly, as the processes need to integrate with various systems, their services are seamlessly

integrated into BPM processes and invoked automatically at runtime.

Pegasystems is one of the remaining pure-play BPM product vendors still in the market today.

Founded in 1983, it originated as a business rules engine provider. Their business rules

software has gradually transformed over the last 30 years into its PegaRULES Process

Commander (PRPC) product. As the name implies, every facet of the software takes a business

rules based approach to BPM.

Oracle’s BPM product is the result of Oracle’s acquisition of BEA’s pure-play BPM product calledAquaLogic BPM in 2008. In 2010, Oracle completed the integration of their process modeling,

business rules, service orchestration, document management and analytic components into

what now constitutes Oracle BPM Suite. The components are now tightly integrated from both

a design time and a runtime perspective. Oracle BPM Suite is a core component in Oracle’s





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With Oracle BPM, the work done by the business

analysts using the web-based Composer tool is

seamlessly shared with developers, who use the more

technically oriented and standards based Oracle BPM

Studio environment running on the JDeveloper IDE.Both developers and the business analysts access the

same underlying Business Process Modeling and

Notation (BPMN) 2.0 process artifacts through a

common repository. Using Studio, however,

developers add the more technical BPMN 2.0 artifacts

into processes developed by the business analysts

(e.g., events), to easily integrate the services the process needs and to map and transform

complex data from one format to another.

Feature Comparison

I. Design Capabilities

Process Modeling

Process models created in a BPM tool graphically represent how the work will flow to the

various people, systems and applications, once the project is put into production.

PRPC processes are modeled using a small subset of BPMN 2.0’s palette of tasks, gateways and

events. It instead relies on the business rules that underlie every PRPC process to regulate how

work items flow through the processes. As a result, the underlying business rules must be

added at the same time a process is being modeled. The tight binding of the process and

business rules obfuscate the processes, in many cases making them more difficult for the

business to understand. Although in the most recent versions swimlane roles (BPMN lanes) can

be added to PRPC processes, they are optional and rarely added. As a result, to business

people used to seeing BPMN processes, the processes in PRPC look instead like complex flow

charts.

Both Oracle BPM Composer and Studio fully support BPMN 2.0 process pools, swimlane roles,

activities, gateways and events. With Oracle BPM, the process itself determines the flow ofwork items and swimlanes are always used to model the default work assignments. Although

some argue that BPMN 2.0 may be complex for the business to understand, the business

oriented Composer tool handles this by only initially offering a simple palette of the most

commonly used activities, gateways and events visible in its process modeling tool. If the

business user wants to add more detailed activities, gateways or events, they can click the More

button at the bottom of the drag and drop palette.

Differences:

Developers using PRPC require

extensive training and

mentoring to learn theproprietary environment.

The Oracle BPM Studio tool

used by developers is standards

based, well documented and

comparatively simple to use.



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In contrast, common BPMN patterns normally modeled in BPM process are instead handled by

PRPC business rules embedded with the process. As a result, some commonly used BPMN

patterns are not supported such as:

BPMN boundary and intermediate events are

not modeled in a PRPC process. BPMN Parallel and Inclusive gateways used to

model multiple people simultaneously working on a

work item are not modeled in a PRPC process.

BPMN Complex gateways that handle the

commonly used voting patterns are not modeled in a

PRPC process.

Although the BPMN Sub-process activity exists

in PRPC, Subprocess looping and multi-instance

patterns (commonly used to separate a batch of items

into separate individual work items) are not supported.

Although PRPC works around these limitations to a

varying degree using business rules, this functionality is

difficult to recreate using PRPC business rules, and the

process diagram itself does not accurately describe

what the process will do once it is activated.

Oracle BPM on the other hand, fully supports all of the

BPMN 2.0 patterns out of the box both at design time

and at runtime. Additionally, because Oracle BPM

supports boundary events, both interrupting and non-

interrupting events are fully supported. Full BPMN

support gives both business users and developers

viewing the process models a clear mutual

understanding of what will occur at runtime. With

Oracle BPM, what is modeled in a process reflects

exactly how it will be executed (i.e. “what you see is

what you execute”).

“ PRPC’s process diagrams made it hard for my team to understand what was

going to be delivered.” – PRPC Project Manager, Major Insurance Provider

Similar to PRPC, Oracle BPM can use business rules to assign tasks. In addition, Oracle BPM can

assign tasks using any of these powerful yet intuitive out-of-the-box patterns:

Differences:

Processes modeled in PRPC use

business rules to determine the

flow, which can be non-intuitive.

PRPC processes are modeled

using a proprietary and abstract

notation that is difficult to

understand.

The BPMN 2.0 artifacts that

cannot be modeled in PRPC

processes are instead

embedded in business rules

under the processes.

Oracle BPM uses standard

BPMN 2.0 artifacts to model

business processes that can be

easily understood by business

people.

Assigning work in Oracle BPM is

more powerful and based on

commonly used patterns.

Oracle BPM Composer allows

snapshots to be taken at various

points in a project’s lifecycle.



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User – simple pattern to assign work to a single user, a list of users or everyone in a role.

FYI – inform a user that something has occurred but the work item continues on in the

process.

Management – a sequential series of approvals that automatically escalate up a user’s

management chain.

Group – based on the list of users specified, each user is sent the work itemsimultaneously.

Complex – a combination of any of these patterns.

Although PRPC and Oracle BPM allow various stakeholders to have read only access to the

projects, business analysts using Oracle BPM Composer can take snapshots of a project at

different times in the project’s lifecycle to share a read-only view of the state of the processes

in a project at a specific point in time. It facilitates mutual understanding and collaboration

between business analysts and developers.

“ Process modeling in Oracle BPM is just what I need. It was simple to learn and

it lets me create implementable processes that my whole extended team can

comprehend.” – Oracle BPM Business Analyst, IT Services Provider

Simulation

As processes are modeled, the focus is on the activities, sequence flows, gateways and defining

who owns the work for the various activities in the process. While processes do a good job of

showing the activities and how they are connected to one another, they do not provide the

information regarding the variations that might occur when the process is actually executed in

production. As a result, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where bottlenecks and cost overrunswill occur once it is deployed into production.

By creating and running simulations, business analysts are able to emulate what will happen

very early in the project’s lifecycle and long before a process goes into production. Simulations

find exactly where process related bottlenecks and budget overruns will occur. The focus can

then be placed on optimizing those areas of the process.

Pegasystems’s ProcessRULES Process Simulator and PegaForcaster are products that can be

added to PRPC at an additional charge, and are used by business analysts to run simulations on

business processes and their associated rules. Based on the estimated work item arrival rate

and the number of resources capable of performing the tasks is input, spreadsheet raw data

must then be exported into Microsoft Excel where the individual rows of data can be viewed

and analyzed. It is a cumbersome extra step.



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Simulation is much more robust in Oracle BPM Suite in both the business oriented Composer

tool as well as the developer oriented Oracle BPM Studio tool. Simulation features in Oracle

BPM that do not exist in PRPC include:

A simulation wizard can be run in Oracle BPM

that speeds and simplifies the creation of a simulation.A business analyst inputs how many work items should

be created during the simulation and how long (in

simulation time) that the process should run. The

estimated time and cost for each activity in the process

is captured. The probability of the simulated instances

taking one path versus another path is entered for each

exclusive gateway in the process.

Cost estimates for the process and each activity

are automatically determined based on the number of

users assigned to process swimlane roles, their hourlyrate and their productivity.

As the simulation is running, work item queue

backlogs are displayed graphically on the process model

itself. Resources can be dynamically changed to see

how many people would be required to resolve an

activity’s backlog while a simulation is still running.

Simulation results do not have to be exported to

Excel to be evaluated. As the simulation is running, 20

different cost, unit throughput and time metrics are

automatically calculated and displayed graphically.

Once the simulation has completed, the metrics are

displayed inside the tool in the form of pie, line and bar

charts.

Actual runtime statistics from production can be

used in simulations. After an Oracle BPM business

process has been deployed and is running in

production, the process is monitored and a simulation

configuration file representing production runtime

statistics can be imported back into a simulation model.

Using this tool, business analysts can see where bottlenecks are actually occurring and better

judge what the impact of process changes to production will be.

Business Rules

Business rules are either embedded as an integral part of a BPM process or are invoked by the

process where they are used to route and assign work items. The rules consist of business

configurable if-then statements or decision tables that look like spreadsheets.

Differences:

PRPC’s simulation is not

included with the base product.

PRPC’s simulation is very

rudimentary. A simulation’s raw

data must be exported to Excel

to be viewed and analyzed.

Simulation is robust and easy to

use in Oracle BPM. Once run,the simulation’s unit

throughput, time and cost

metrics are displayed as charts

in the same development

environment.

In Oracle BPM, a wizard

simplifies and speeds the

creation of initial simulation

models.

Once deployed, the live process

performance metrics from the

BPM engine can be imported

back into an Oracle BPM

simulation model to help

identify runtime bottlenecks.



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Because of Pegasystems’s origins as a business rules vendor – most artifacts created in PRPC

have rules embedded. Although business people find the business rules tightly bound to the

processes simple enough to create and maintain, developers are at time constrained by the

business rules. For example, because different services are invoked as work items flow through

a business process, it is common to map one type of data object into another object type.Where Oracle BPM uses a simple drag and drop declarative XSLT standards based diagram to

map the attributes between the data types, PRPC instead takes a more cumbersome approach

of using business rules to map the attributes between the differing data types.

Because of its extensive use of business rules

throughout the product, PRPC is a fit for enterprises

that are already comfortable with PRPC business rules

and for processes that are heavily business rules based.

Oracle BPM Suite includes Oracle Business Rules. Bothbusiness analysts using Composer and developers using

Oracle BPM Studio can create and edit business rules.

Unlike PRPC, business processes created in Oracle BPM

are not tightly bound to business rules. This separation

is intentional and allows the business rules to be

defined separately and in parallel from process

modeling because the two are typically done by people

with differing skill sets. Because the rules are separate

from the processes, the business becomes more agileand adaptable to change. Business people can change

Oracle business rules as often as the business needs

them to change. The changes take effect immediately

without redeploying the associated processes each

time. An Oracle business rule can be added to the processes simply by adding BPMN business

rule activity into the flow of the process. As a work item travels through the process’s business

rule activity, the associated business rule is invoked and the results are returned back to the

process automatically.

Oracle BPM business rules have a business-friendly syntax and can be defined in either if-then

or spreadsheet styles. If created using the spreadsheet style, error checking automatically

detects both overlaps and gaps in the rules.

Differences:

PRPC project artifacts are tightly

bound to business rules

throughout the product even

where a simple declarativediagram would be more

productive and easier to

maintain.

Agility is improved because

Oracle BPM process models and

business rules are loosely

coupled which simplifies

development, provides a

division of labor, and makes iteasy to change a rule without

having to redeploy its associated

process.



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User Interface Form Creation

The user interfaces created inside BPM tools are how the information about a work item is

displayed to the end-users at runtime. The user interfaces can display dynamically rendered

graphical charts, graphs and maps to help represent the data.

End user interfaces are created in PRPC using a drag and drop interface. But just like the PRPC

business processes, the user interfaces are rule-based. As forms are created, their embedded

business rules must also be added.

Oracle BPM takes a more commonly used approach to developing end user interfaces. Oracle

BPM’s user interface development tools use a declarative diagram drag and drop / property

driven approach.

Non-technical business people use Oracle BPM’s Web

Form Designer tool to create user interface forms

quickly with very little training. A developer’s

assistance might be required to hide / show or disable /

enable fields and to populate dropdowns because

these rules are created in the tool using JavaScript.

Without having to deploy the project, a business

person using Oracle BPM’s Process Player in Composer

can interactively test the forms associated with each

user activity in the process while still having the

process model displayed. As a work item travels

through the process during testing, each user interface

created in the Web Form Design tool is displayed withdata and executed as a test work item instance flows

through each User activity in the process.

Developers use Oracle BPM Studio’s Application

Development Framework (ADF) tool to create the

complex end-user forms that require sophisticated

controls and functionality. ADF is a best-in-class tool

used by thousands of developers both inside Oracle

BPM and also outside to develop forms in portals,

standalone web applications and in Oracle’s own

Fusion Application packages. It is a complete Model

View Controller (MVC) JavaServer Faces (JSF) standards based environment. Because it is MVC

based, it is transparent where the information displayed on the ADF forms comes from and the

information can include an aggregation of the data coming from the process’s payload, web

services, databases, Java classes and EJBs. Although ADF is a very powerful tool, there is a

steeper learning curve associated with it. Having the assistance of someone who has used ADF

on a previous project will help developers get started.

Differences:

PRPC form development is

based on Pegasystems’s

proprietary rules technology.

With Oracle BPM, both non-

technical business people and

developers can create the user

forms using tools specifically

designed for them.

Oracle BPM’s ADF used by

developers is standards based,

richer in functionality and has a

larger set of AJAX based

components than those included

with PRPC.

Oracle BPM’s Web Form

Designer is simpler to use than

PRPC’s form designer.



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Data Modeling

Data modeling tools define how information will be stored in a relational database. A diagram

is used to define the tables, how the information is stored in each table, and lines are drawn

between the tables to reflect how the tables relate to one another. For example, a data model

diagram shows that an order can have many order lines by showing an ORDER table and anORDER_LINE table and a line between the two indicating that orders have zero, one or more

order lines. Data modeling is often needed on a BPM project to model how the data is to be

stored. This becomes especially important if information needs to be persisted beyond the life

of a work item in a process.

PRPC does not include a tool for relational database modeling, and if this is a requirement, a

third party tool must be purchased separately.

Having its origins as one of the original relational

database vendors gives Oracle a distinct advantage inthis area. Oracle BPM Studio includes the same tools

that developers have used for years to create and

maintain relational data models.

Logical data models are created declaratively in a

diagram that shows the tables, their foreign keys and

primary keys. The physical tables are then easily created from the logical data model either

through Oracle BPM Studio directly or by the SQL it generates.

IntegrationIntegration refers to a BPM tool’s ability to automatically connect to and invoke backend

systems and databases as work items flow through the processes. One of the key benefits of a

BPM product is its ability to integrate to backend systems inside the tool without developers

having to resort to hand coding the interfaces.

PRPC provides a declarative environment wizard based approach to integrate to the backend

services, databases and applications. The wizards provided are intended to guide developers

through the creation of connectors to the backend systems using native technologies, web

services, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), .Net, JDBC, Java Message System (JMS) and IBM

WebSphere MQ. Although PRPC’s integration to web services is relatively simple, the

integration wizards to other technologies are difficult to use and are poorly documented.

Developers find PRPC’s browser-based interface both cumbersome and limiting. As a result,

most developers elect instead to hand code in Java.

Difference:

PRPC requires the purchase of a

third party tool to model data.

Oracle BPM includes a best-in-

class data modeling tool.



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Pegasystems has experienced consultants who should be used to help customers with

integration. Customers considering PRPC should bring in Pegasystems consultants to help with

integration on their first project if it involves more

complex application or data integration requirements.

A key benefit of Oracle BPM Suite is that it is layered

on top of Oracle's SOA platform and its complete set of

best-in-class adapters and tools. Oracle’s SOA

platform is a proven, standards based approach to

exposing and integrating databases and backend

services using standard Java EE Connector Architecture

(JCA) adapters. Some of the adapters included are:

B2B, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), database,

EJB, File, FTP, HTTP, JMS, MQ and web service

adapters.

Beyond the vendor’s training, learning how to

integrate to services using Oracle BPM can be learned

easily through the documentation inside the tool,

through commercially available books or on Oracle

Technical Network (OTN). Developers can get hands-

on practical experience using Oracle BPM by simply

downloading the software openly available from

Oracle’s website.

Oracle BPM Suite is the best choice to integrate and

supplement Oracle Fusion application packaged

solutions. Oracle Fusion applications are easily made

process-aware and integrated with Oracle BPM

through:

Pre-built integration – Fusion Applications

come with pre-built Oracle BPM processes and the

reusable services required for integration.

Built using Oracle BPM – Both Oracle Fusion

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Oracle

Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) Fusion

applications were created using BPMN processes. This

means that both can be modified and extended

natively using Oracle BPM.

Differences:

Because of the product’sproprietary nature, PRPC

developers require much more

training and mentoring.

Integration to backend services,

databases and applications is

cumbersome in PRPC,

frequently requiring hand

coding in Java and Pegasystems

consultants to assist onprojects.

For training purposes,

developers can get hands-on

experience using Oracle BPM

by simply downloading and

installing the openly available

software from Oracle.

Oracle BPM leverages Oracle

SOA, a best-in-class integration

platform.

Oracle BPM’s Composite

diagram visually represents the

integration between the

components.

Oracle BPM Suite includes

Oracle BPEL, a best-in-class

service orchestration tool.

Oracle BPM uses a simple drag

and drop, standards based

diagram to easily transform

data between services.



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Each Oracle BPM project has a standards-based Service Component Architecture (SCA)

composite diagram associated with it that is used to not only define the components, but also

to depict how the components are assembled and connected to one another declaratively by

simply dragging the wires between components on the diagram.

Although PRPC processes can invoke exposed services, PRPC does not include the robust

service-to-service orchestration tools BPM projects sometimes require. Where PRPC’s

integration is point-to-point (process to a service), Oracle BPM Suite includes Oracle BPEL

Process Manager’s best-in-class service orchestration tool. Oracle BPEL is a standards based

approach to model services, manage transactions, and handle compensations when exceptions

occur. When complex service orchestration is required, an Oracle BPEL process is invoked

natively from an Oracle BPM process’s Service activity.

As the underlying services are exposed and connected, the data going into and back out from

the service often needs to be transformed from one data schema’s format into another. In

PRPC, the transformation is done using its proprietary business rules. Oracle BPM on the otherhand includes a best-in-class declarative drag-and-drop mapping tool and stores the mapping in

XSLT standard syntax. Using the tool, both simple and complex logic driven mappings are

available as the data is transformed.

“ PRPC is very complicated. We often found ourselves hand coding Java to keep from

having to use it for integration.” – PRPC Developer, Technology Services Provider

II. Execution Capabilities

Business User Experience Although business users select, execute, re-assign,

delegate and escalate tasks similarly in both products,

the collaboration between business users and

developers is handled differently.

In PRPC, business users access their applications using

the same web-based environment that the developers

use. An advantage of this is that it allows direct

collaboration and feedback between the IT developers

and the business people. For example, as an end-user

selects an existing item to work on, they can

immediately rate the effectiveness of user interface

pages and add a sticky note with suggested

improvements that the developer can see. As well as

having the ability to list and perform their assigned

Differences:

Business users on PRPC can

provide feedback to developers

while on a form at runtime.

In Oracle BPM Suite, business

users can be actively involved

in the project’s development.

Using Oracle BPM Suite’s

WebCenter portal, the business

analysts can create, view and

modify business processes,

business rules and user

interfaces.



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tasks, PRPC business users are able to interactively collaborate with one another using chat.

Oracle WebCenter is a full featured Web 2.0 portal and collaboration environment, and Oracle

BPM Suite includes WebCenter’s Process Spaces. Process Spaces is role-based, and business

users only see and perform the tasks assigned to them or to their assigned groups based on the

process model’s design. Based on the business user’s permissions, they can also view, create or

modify process models, business rules and user interfaces using Composer’s web user interface.

Business users select and work on process instances from a task list and collaborate with one

another using WebCenter’s chat and wiki. For customers without a portal implementation, the

task list can also be exposed using a web-based Workspace tool or through Oracle BPM’s API.

Content Management

Content management is software that is either bundled with BPM tools or purchased

separately. Its purpose is to manage, version and view files that business users upload, based

on the user’s role and permissions. When used with BPM, content management transparentlyassociates files with specific work items flowing through processes. Content management’s

ability to seamlessly upload and version the files associated with work items is a key element of

most BPM projects.

PRPC does not include content management software

and it must be purchased separately. PRPC can

integrate to content management software packages

that use Content Management Interoperability Services

(CMIS) protocol.

Oracle WebCenter Content is packaged with Oracle

BPM Suite and has out-of-the-box integration with the

product. If a customer has an existing content

management software solution, it can be integrated

with Oracle BPM using the content management

software’s API.

Case Management

Case Management is a feature recently added by most BPM vendors into their products. UsingCase Management, knowledge workers are able to create, manage, maintain and share a case.

The case is a collection of tasks, information, documents and decisions that are made during its

lifespan. Instead of a work item flowing through a pre-determined or deterministic process, a

case in both PRPC’s Dynamic Case Management (DCM) and Oracle BPM’s Adaptive Case

Management (ACM) can be created to dynamically invoke several different processes, which

are managed by a business rule. Individual case workers can invoke sub-cases along the way.

Differences:

PRPC does not include content

management software. Third

party software must be

purchased separately and thenintegrated into the end-user’s

environment.

Oracle BPM Suite includes

content management within

the product.



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Although included in several BPM tools, Case Management’s practical use will remain

dependent on the level of BPM maturity inside an organization and it will remain limited until

there is a more widespread need for ad-hoc and custom case solutions.

PRPC and Oracle BPM’s Case Management functionality is similar and both include Case

Management as an integral part of the product provided at no additional charge.

Cases are created similarly in both PRPC (using PRPC’s Case Designer) and Oracle BPM (using

Oracle BPM Studio). Developers in both tools define the different processes, tasks, milestones

and the underlying business rules that form the case.

Instead of viewing the individual granular pieces of a case, end-users need an overall view of

the cases at runtime. Cases are managed and viewed similarly in both PRPC (using the Case

Manager Portal add-on) and Oracle BPM (using the Case Space tool inside of Process Spaces).

III. Analysis and Monitoring

Process Monitoring

For business executives and managers, one of the most significant problems with enterprise

software has been the scarcity of meaningful reports that represent the flood of underlying

data. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) abstracts the raw data and presents meaningful

views of easily understood graphical charts designed in the BAM product. Authorized end-users

can view graphical reports that display the current

status or past status of KPIs and service level

agreements (SLA). Monitoring can be made active bysetting thresholds and then used to automatically send

notifications to workers when a threshold is about to

be reached (e.g. automatically notify a manager and

escalate a work item’s priority when its SLA is about to

expire).

PRPC’s BAM gathers process performance and KPI

metrics as work items flow through the processes.

Pre-built BAM reports can display the aggregated data

inside of PRPC and additional reports can be

constructed by developers.

Although both PRPC and Oracle BPM’s process monitoring tools can automatically trigger

events to respond to KPI performance thresholds being met, Oracle BPM Suite’s process

monitoring has richer functionality and includes two different types of process monitoring

capabilities.

Differences:

PRPC’s BAM only monitors and

displays PRPC’s metrics.

Oracle BPM’s BAM can monitor

events from both inside and

outside of Oracle BPM.

Oracle BPM’s Process Analytics

dashboards can be constructed

by business users.



16


First, Oracle BPM’s Process Analytics is used by authorized business people to create their own

dashboards using the Workspace and Process Spaces tools. The data displayed in the charts is

aggregated from a star schema database that stores the historical information about work

items as they flow through processes or portions of processes automatically. The performance

and KPI information displayed is based on process, activity, people performance times and thebusiness indicator KPIs built into the process.

Second, Oracle BPM Suite also includes Oracle BAM. Like PRPC’s BAM, it can invoke process

related events when a threshold is reached (e.g., to start or interrupt or escalate a work item),

but Oracle BAM is not limited to displaying process KPIs from within the BPM Workspace and

can also be used by other applications. It can display not only the process information but also

event feeds from outside of Oracle BPM to create a complete picture of the status of the

business. Another difference is that Oracle BAM charts are loosely coupled with Oracle BPM.

This means that Oracle BAM charts can be displayed from within Oracle BPM Spaces and

Workspace as well as from Oracle BAM’s standalone web application or other applications.

Process Intelligence

While BAM tools display pie and bar charts that are populated as instances flow through

processes, some BPM tools also use process intelligence that provides sophisticated real time

analytics to improve the decisions that are being made. Based on the metrics input, processes

are capable of continuing to improve their decisions or suggestions to end-users over time.

Sometimes referred to as intelligent business operations, this enables:

Real time awareness of the actions that should be taken. Cases previously sent to

business users to analyze or approve can instead be handled without human

intervention.

Visibility of events occurring throughout the enterprise and the changes needed.

Faster and better decisions to help drive revenue, decrease cost and improve customer

satisfaction.

Improved compliance and fraud detection.

PRPC’s Next-Best-Action Advisor (N-B-A) is available at an additional charge and is used to help

knowledge workers make better decisions based on its recommendations. When combined

with Pegasystems frameworks, it can be used to improve customer retention, customer loyalty

and cross-selling opportunities.

Similarly, Oracle has a product called Oracle Real-time Decisions (RTD) used to automatically

make decisions and provide recommendations.

Both PRPC’s N-B-A and Oracle’s RTD can provide additional value to the entire enterprise

because they are both loosely coupled with their BPM products. As a result, they can be used



17


outside of a BPM work item or process context. The metrics input can come from either inside

or outside of BPM processes, and they can expose their decisions to both BPM processes as

well as enterprise’s other applications and web forms.

If extensive analytics are required for a project, Oracle Business Analytics tools can be easily

integrated with Oracle BPM. It is additional cost but offers extensive process analytics and

reporting that is beyond what PRPC N-B-A can provide.

IV. Technical Components and Capabilities

Runtime Architecture and Tools

PRPC runs on WebLogic, WebSphere and JBoss applications servers and Tomcat web server.

PRPC projects and rules are deployed as JAR files.

Oracle BPM runs on both WebLogic and WebSphere application servers. Unlike PRPC, Oracle

BPM projects are deployed as the industry standard SOA composite EAR files that

administrators are used to deploying.

Pegasystems recommends that their consulting

services be used on projects to help identify and

resolve bottlenecks, add indexes, to increase memory

and to set the database cache and pool threads

appropriately.

Oracle BPM projects on the other hand are already

optimized to run on their targeted application servers

without the need for extensive performance tuning

services by the vendor.

PRPC’s System Management Application (SMA) is an

add-on product that can be purchased at an additional

charge to help monitor memory utilization and the Java

Virtual Machines (JVM). This is an important tool

because as PRPC rules are executed, bottlenecks can

occur as a chain of business rules related to it may alsobe executed. Depending on the length of the chain, performance issues may result.

Oracle Enterprise Manager, an enterprise management solution, is much more comprehensive

and robust than PRPC’s SMA in these important areas:

Using Enterprise Manager, developers easily see how a work item traveled through its

entire path – not only through the Oracle BPM components but also through every SOA

Differences:

Pegasystems consulting

services is sometimes required

to improve the engine’s

performance.

The PRPC SMA add-on has only

a very small subset of Oracle

Enterprise Manager’s

functionality.

Oracle BPM projects run on

application servers without the

need for performance

optimization.



18


service, human task, business rule and process invoked throughout the work item’s

lifecycle. Developers are able to see the payload into and out of every step in the work

item’s lifespan.

On BPM projects, end-to-end administration and management is essential. Enterprise

Manager is included with Oracle BPM Suite.

Enterprise Manager continuously monitors the health of the entire domain and itscomposites. Performance statistics are viewed and tuned for both BPM composites as

well as the services and transactions invoked outside of Oracle BPM. Individual

composite projects can be started, shutdown, restarted, deployed or removed as

needed.

“ Having used both PRPC and Oracle BPM, as a developer on PRPC projects I

often found myself missing Oracle BPM’s ability to track an item throughout its

entire lifecycle including every process, sub-process, task and service.”

– PRPC Administrator, IT Provider

Frameworks / Process Accelerators

BPM vendors create pre-built industry specific or

horizontal solutions using their products that give

customers a jump start on projects. Pegasystems calls

these Frameworks and Oracle calls them Process

Accelerators. They are built using the BPM tool and

can be deployed as is or customized to meet the

specific needs of a customer. Vendors provide both

industry specific solutions (e.g., financial industry clienton-boarding application) and horizontal solutions (e.g.,

a cross industry Customer Relationship Management

application). They normally include BPM process

models, business rules, end-user interfaces, database

schemas, key performance indicators (KPI), dashboards

and work item payload definitions.

Pegasystems has led both the vertical and horizontal

BPM solution offerings. An industry specific

foundation data model is provided and then on top of

that the customizable PRPC built solution is stacked.

Because of the long learning curve and the difficulty

developers have using the product, these pre-built

add-on solution frameworks are a key element in

Differences:

The Pegasystems Frameworks

are robust and cover a variety

of vertical industries.

Pegasystems charges a

premium price for itsFrameworks.

Beyond the purchase price, also

factor in the cost of

experienced Pegasystems

consultants needed to extend a

Framework solution.

Because of Oracle BPM’s

relative ease of use, Oracle

BPM Process Accelerators are

much easier to extend.

Oracle BPM Process

Accelerators are provided at no

cost to customers.



19


Pegasystems’s success. Once purchased, they are then tailored to fit the customer’s specific

needs.

Pegasystems has hired respected industry experts to help create and market their frameworks.

The vertical Frameworks include applications for Financial Services, Communications,

Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing and Public Sector. Pegasystems horizontal frameworks

include Case Management, CRM and Project Management.

Pegasystems frameworks are premium priced. They are extended with the help of Pegasystems

consulting services or their partners. When considering using one of the Pegasystems

frameworks, beyond the price of the BPM tool and the framework, one should also factor in the

cost of the experienced Pegasystems consultants who will be needed to help customize the

solution.

Oracle’s pre-built Process Accelerators became available in 2012. They are built, extended and

deployed using Oracle BPM. Each includes the processes, business rules, payload schemas,

database schema definitions, user interfaces and dashboards needed.

Oracle BPM vertical process accelerators include: Public Sector Incident Reporting, Financial

Service Loan Origination and Business Account Opening. Oracle BPM horizontal process

accelerators include Travel Request Management, Document Routing and Approval, Internal

Service Request and Employee On-boarding. They are provided to customers at no charge and

can be used as a portion of the solution or simply as a training aid to illustrate best practices on

an Oracle BPM project.

Cost ConsiderationsThe cost factors that should be considered when evaluating BPM include software licensing,

maintenance and support, implementation, hardware, training and operational support. The

cost of the pre-built BPM solutions provided by the vendors (PRPC Frameworks or Oracle BPM

Process Accelerators), and the cost of additional software licenses must also be factored in

(e.g., database, application server and content management).

PRPC is significantly more expensive than Oracle BPM Suite. Oracle BPM comes with features

that PRC either does not possess or only includes at an additional charge. It typically costs

organizations at least two times more to purchase the software license and implement a

project using PRPC, which often requires more professional services to implement integration.

It also costs extra to purchase additional software such as content management, and seven

times more to train a developer to use PRPC.



20


Acquisition

Comparing the acquisition costs of PRPC and Oracle BPM is not a one-to-one comparison given

their different licensing models. Pegasystems licenses PRPC on a usage basis with a license fee

for each named user, rule execution and connection to an external system. Oracle typically

licenses on a per CPU basis but also provides an option to purchase on a per user basis.

Two sample scenarios are shown below to help provide context and a comparison between the

two products. It is important to understand that both vendors require an application server

and relational database. PRPC runs on WebLogic, WebSphere and JBoss applications servers

and Tomcat web server. Oracle BPM is certified to run on both WebLogic and WebSphere. In

addition, Oracle BPM requires an Oracle SOA Suite license as well.

Scenario A: Small-Medium Process – Oracle BPM $70,000, Pegasystems over $150,000 (USD).

Regular Named Users: 25

Process Steps/Activities: 25Process Instances Per Month: 1,050

Rule Invocations Per Month: 100,000

Connectors/Integrations: 4

Oracle – This scenario would lend itself to a named user license for Oracle BPM. The

perpetual use license cost would be approximately $70,000 per environment installed.

Oracle also offers customers an entry level restricted-use license alterative called Oracle

BPM Standard Edition. It is priced on a named user model and gives customers an

economical alternative to prove out BPM with a minimal license investment. Pegasystems

does not offer this alternative.

Pegasystems – The license cost for the connectors alone almost equals Oracle BPM’s price.

The additional cost for users and rules invocations raises the price well above $150,000 for

each environment installed. Pegasystems’s license costs are higher primarily because there

is a charge each time a PRPC rule is executed. The number of rules can quickly grow

because of the ubiquitous nature of the rules integrated in the processes, user interfaces

and data transformations required to execute a process.

Scenario B: Large Process – Oracle BPM less than $300,000, Pegasystems over $1 million (USD).

Regular Named Users: 250

Process Steps/Activities: 100

Process Instances Per Month: 100,000

Rules Invocations Per Month: 5,000,000

Connectors/Integrations: 8



21


Oracle – This scenario would lend itself to a CPU based license for Oracle BPM. The

perpetual use license cost would be under $300,000 for a quad-core CPU capable of

handling the users and transactions.

Pegasystems – The license cost for the named users alone exceeds the Oracle BPM license.

The added cost for users and rules invocations raises the price well above $1 million.

Oracle BPM Pegasystems PRPC

Software license CPU or User based User, usage, connector, and

invocation based.

Add-ons Process Accelerators, SOA Suite

and WebCenter Portal/Content

Management is included

Frameworks, integrations,

content management software

Requisite Software Application Server, Database Application Server, Database

Entry Level License Oracle BPM SE None

Small License Deal < $250,000 < $550,000

Maintenance and Support

Pegasystems charges 20% of the original license fee annually for Support and Maintenance,

while Oracle charges 22% of the net license annually. Given the higher cost of the license for

Pegasystems in the examples above, the Maintenance and Support fees are correspondingly

higher as well.

Implementation

The most difficult comparison in this analysis is the cost of an implementation. The variation in

skill levels, availability of skilled resources, project requirements and each client’s existinghardware and software environment make implementation comparisons difficult. In both

products, implementations can be achieved from

installation to production within ninety days.

For the purposes of a comparison, assume that

Scenario A above is used and assume that the project

is estimated to take between four to six months from

process discovery to production release. Assume also

that the resources required on the project include two

experienced developers, two inexperienced

developers, relevant subject matter experts and

technical experts. Because PRPC has a longer learning

curve, the inexperienced developers will be less

productive on the project. Developers using Oracle

BPM are normally proficient at the end of their first

Differences:

Pegasystems licenses on a usage

basis versus Oracle’s CPU based

model.

Pegasystems license and

implementation costs are

significantly more expensive

It costs 7 times more to be

trained in PRPC than in Oracle

BPM.



22


project while PRPC developers are not yet fully productive even on their second project. As a

result, PRPC projects typically take longer time and cost more to deliver.

Training

Training is an essential element for success with any software product and BPM products are no

exception. Both Oracle and Pegasystems offer role-based training that allows business and

technical resources to gain the knowledge needed to use their respective products. Below are

the BPM courses listed by each vendor.

Pegasystems Technical Training

Course Investment

PRPC: Fast Track – Foundation course 5 days

PRPC: Boot camp - Follow-on to the Fast Track course 5 days

PRPC: Senior System Architect – Deep Dive 15 days

PRPC: Lead System Architect – Follow-on 20 days

Pegasystems Business-Focused Training

Course Investment

PRPC: Business Architect Essentials – Foundation course 5 days

PRPC: DCO & Methodology Workshop – DCO tool training 5 days

Oracle BPM Technical Training

Course Investment

Oracle BPM: Implement the Process Model 4 days

Oracle BPM Business-Focused Training

Course Investment

Oracle BPM: Modeling – 3 day model, simulations, BAM

dashboard training

3 days

Oracle BPM: Essentials – half-day self-study – quick overview of

Oracle BPM modeling, simulation, Workspace and BAM

.5 days

As illustrated here, Pegasystems recommends significantly more training than Oracle does. An

investment in training for a technical person to use PRPC can be as much as $18,000 compared

to only $2,400 for Oracle. Also take into account the opportunity cost of the 41 days of lost

productivity in the office.

Other Costs

In addition to the major factors indicated above, other factors should also be considered when

comparing the total cost of Oracle BPM and PRPC. One key factor is that Oracle BPM is bundled

and integrated with a best-of-breed content management system that can be used to store,

secure, and associate documents with the individual process work item tasks. If PRPC is



23


purchased, a separate content management system from a third party would also need to be

licensed if content management is required on the project.

“ It was very difficult for us to find trained and qualified PRPC resources for my

project. Because it took us so long to train our own developers, we found

ourselves having to bring in the vendor’s consultants at a much higher cost .”

– PRPC Project Manager, IT Consulting Services Provider

The pre-built solutions provided in Oracle BPM’s Process Accelerators and PRPC’s Frameworks

can greatly speed development time. Although there are more PRPC Frameworks, their license

fee is quite high. Oracle currently offers its Process Accelerators free of charge.



24


SummaryEven though the different BPM products continue to evolve rapidly, the market is gradually

becoming more mature, and many of the products appear on the surface to have similar

functionality. However, a BPM product that is a perfect fit for one company might easily be a

very poor fit for another. Before beginning an evaluation, one should always ensure that boththe business and technical teams involved have evaluated their needs and have determined the

critical areas of functionality they require.

Pegasystems’s PegaRULES Process Commander (PRPC) and Oracle’s BPM Suite are a microcosm

of the overall BPM market today. The two products have key fundamental and philosophical

differences in the way they approach BPM from both business and technical perspectives.

Cost – The Pegasystems PRPC and its Frameworks have a much higher price point

than Oracle BPM Suite and its Process Accelerators. Oracle BPM comes with features

that PRPC either does not include or only includes at an additional charge. It typicallycosts organizations at least two times more to purchase the software license and

implement a project using Pegasystems PegaRULES. It costs seven times more to train

someone how to develop BPM projects using Pegasystems and its idiosyncratic rules.

Ease of use – Although PRPC is simple for the business analysts to use, it is a difficult

tool for developers to use. Oracle BPM Suite is friendly to both business analysts and

developers. Oracle BPM has robust, standards based and easy to use tools that target

the different needs of business analysts and developers. The processes built in Oracle

BPM are based on the BPMN 2.0 standard, which is much easier for the business and

developers to understand.

Service Integration and Orchestration – Integration to underlying services is much

easier to accomplish using Oracle BPM. Rather than point-to-point connection to

services, Oracle BPM’s BPEL provides best-in-class service orchestration. Oracle BPM

is the product to purchase if backend application and service integration is required

on BPM projects.

Monitoring and Administration – Administrators find it easier to manage the overall

environment, and developers find it easier to debug process issues using Oracle BPM.

Enablement – Although both vendors provide training, both developers and business

people also can learn how to use Oracle BPM by downloading it from Oracle’s

website and installing it at no charge.



AVIO Consulting partners with customers to optimize their investments in middleware

technologies, process improvement initiatives and business strategy / IT capability alignment

efforts. AVIO offers full lifecycle consulting services from infrastructure to implementation,

instructor-led and virtual training and mentoring for BPM and SOA enterprise initiatives.

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