Business process management specialist Software AG, two years removed from its acquisition of webMethods Inc., has rolled out the latest version of the webMethods suite, promising improved management of business processes and faster time to value when integrating applications and IT-based services.
Citing improved reuse of services, streamlined development, and tight alignment of business and IT services, Peter Kuerpick, chief product officer and Executive Board member, said in a statement that webMethods 8.0 “enables companies to accelerate their process improvement and SOA initiatives.”
New to the 8.0 release is the CentraSite ActiveSOA tool, an integrated Business Service Repository that couples business process management with the capabilities of a services-oriented architecture (SOA). The company bills the advancement as an industry first, saying traditional systems maintained separate registries for business process assets and SOA assets.
In touting the integration achieved by the CentraSite addition, Software AG quoted a recent report from analyst firm Gartner, Inc., which said, “Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) enable each other, but process governance must be coordinated with SOA governance to provide visibility and policy enforcement across multiple siloed domains.”
Software AG has also enhanced the business process management functionality in v8.0, allowing end users to interact with one another via what it calls “collaborative personal workspaces.” Additional upgrades to the suite include a new service mediation offering dubbed webMethods Mediator, and business intelligence capabilities that allow knowledge workers to rate current performance against historical data.