The "informal" link between IDS Scheer's ARIS and Microsoft BizTalk
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
Despite recent reports that IDS Scheer was working on an alliance to more tightly integrate its ARIS business process modeling package with Microsoft's BizTalk, the link between the two products remains informal, says Dr. Mathias Kirchmer, CEO, IDS Scheer, Americas & Japan. But Kirchmer adds that integration between the two solutions is possible using the emerging Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) standard.
As stated, ARIS is a business process modeling and management solution, while BizTalk Server handles application integration and business process orchestration. A formal alliance to mesh the products would have been significant in that ARIS is being tightly integrated with SAP's NetWeaver integration technologies, thus forging a stronger business process management link between Microsoft-centric and SAP-centric systems.
"At the moment, all the initiatives with BizTalk integration are customer-driven," says Kirchmer. "We've had discussions with Microsoft, based on customer interests, but those have not proceeded to a formal alliance."
However, says Kirchmer, process models designed in ARIS can be passed to BizTalk for execution using BPEL. The specification also is used to integrate with other business process execution engines, says Kirchmer, though typically, some tweaking of the model is necessary.
Henry Peyret, an analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, says BPEL is not a final standard, and falls short of a seamless process model integration tool. But, he adds, "BPEL exchange is better than redrawing. It gains time."
Last fall, IDS Scheer and SAP announced an alliance to integrate ARIS with NetWeaver. According to Kirchmer, this is a deep product alliance that will result in a single repository for modeling between ARIS and SAP's Exchange Infrastructure (XI), part of the NetWeaver stack that handles business process execution.
IDS Scheer also has a consulting business, including a practice for deploying ERP systems from Microsoft Business Solutions. While the tie between ARIS and BizTalk remains loose, Kirchmer claims, "We are an ideal company to work with regarding SAP and Microsoft Business Solutions environments, because of our relationships with both vendors and clients."
