Nobody is immune to it. Eventually you're in a conversation somewhere and the acronyms are flying and the jargon is charging. You are following along, nodding perhaps, and then in a flash... you've lost the plot. The person on the other end of the phone is going on and on about a solution that was really cool and it used BPM, SOA, and BPEL.
Wait, you think to yourself, BPM is "business process management" and that's when they design business processes... like using Visio... is it Visio? Note to self, check on Visio... anyway, BPM is hot, right? Isn't everyone touting it like mad? Who exactly is doing this design? I've never met a "business analyst," have I? How many business analysts are out there and could they possibly justify all the product hype?
Meanwhile, the conversation is still rolling on. This time it's about SOA. Whew, you think to yourself, this is familiar ground. SOA. SOA isn't ESB, but ESB can be a part of SOA, right? Or do you even need an ESB? Haven't we had SOA around for a while? I thought web services were the visible manifestations of SOA, or are they the other side of the SOA coin?
Anyway, BPEL. Isn't that the language for designing business processes? But BPM does that. Maybe BPM uses BPEL. Or maybe they compete. Do I need BPEL? Does the hypothetical business analyst need it?
Of course, your mind isn't this scattered (or is it!). Nevertheless, this article clarifies all.
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