Who wants ‘cloud-native’ business process?

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No, not link-baiting on the perils of putting your important business process into the cloud but actually a question. For a couple of years (at least) it has been clear that ‘modern’ applications are being built with the set of technologies loosely termed ‘HTML5’. And most BPM suites have responded lately with a RESTful API. But it always feels to me that these are traditional enterprise applications wrapped in a light sprinkling of cloudy fairy dust.

Where are the tools that support genuine ‘business processes’ to be integrated with lightweight micro-sites by my existing web agency? Where are the data-binding tools that allow me to use messages triggered from standard HTML pages to control process-driven applications? Where the dynamically scalable, utility computing platform that can host my BPMN models? Which suite lets me tell it the task or project management tool where I want my user tasks to show up? If you too have been hunting, read on…

For some time now KnowProcess has been delivering projects that rely on the features above married with HTML 5 features like offline use, localStorage and richer form validation. We picked our favourite open source BPM engine and gradually built the infrastructure around it to make a BPMS worthy of being termed a cloud-native. A couple of examples: Syncapt is performing a number of marketing automation such as lead management and customer care follow ups. Trakeo is helping of organisations reduce their environmental and social impacts within the complex environments of statutory and voluntary regulation.

Now at last we’re getting around to making it available as a stand-alone service. You’ll be able to create an account and immediately start using the built in processes. And of course you’ll be able to deploy your own too using our built in service tasks. There’s a little way to go yet, sorting out the developer documentation and so on but if it sounds interesting why not get in touch and we’ll get you on the early adopter programme: info (at) knowprocess.com or @knowprocess

Oh, how much does it cost you say? True to its cloud pedigree, it will be a freemium model so expect a small use-based subscription for the service. We owe a lot to existing open source projects and if you want you’ll be able to deploy it yourself on your own kit you’ll be able to though of course we feel you’ll miss much of the benefit that way. The plan is to find an open source home for it soon, perhaps even within an existing project.