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Google's cloud gets a dose of BPM

Madan Sheina

Google's cloud gets a dose of BPM

Cordys is applying its business process management (BPM) know-how to Google Apps, a suite of communication and collaboration tools designed to run in the cloud. Through integration with the Cordys Process Factory process orchestration capabilities, cost-conscious Google Apps customers will finally have a way of working collaboratively with Google Docs by implementing process automation and workflow in the cloud for less than the cost of a mobile phone.

This is a cheap and cheerful way to implement workflow in the cloud

This integration is aimed at organisations that want to marry the BPM capabilities of the Cordys Process Factory, a hosted development environment in the platform-as-a-service mould, with Google Apps - which includes personal productivity, collaboration and messaging tools such as Google Docs, Gmail, Google Talk IM, Google Calendar and Google Video - to build and run structured workflow applications in the cloud.

Cordys says that users of Google Apps Premier Edition will benefit from its process automation and workflow capabilities, from smooth and painless integration and a low entry cost. For example, the integration will let users of Google Apps push their Google Spreadsheets through a workflow, send tasks and notifications to Gmail, or build forms as iPhone-pluggable gadgets.

The low cost of deployment, enabled by Google hosting all the hardware and software, will also surely resonate. BPM has never been simple or cheap to implement on corporate networks. Conscious of the pockets of Google Apps users, Cordys claims that process automation and workflow can be implemented without IT development and maintenance overheads in the cloud for less than the cost of a mobile phone. The cost of the service is estimated at around $50 per user per year - a bargain compared to traditional BPM solutions.

However, even though the economic benefits of the cloud might be tempting, Google Apps still has a relatively limited audience - appealing mainly to start-ups or departments. Users should check to see if this is a raw cloud-based service, minus the enterprise plumbing such as failover, security and access controls. If that's the case then they will need third-party plumbing to manage it on an enterprise scale. Hence even with Cordys workflow capabilities included, Google's early stake in the ground (or the cloud) might not go too deep (or high) into the enterprise.

Google Apps users will benefit from the simplicity of browser-based mashups enabled by process orchestration services in the cloud

The integration of Cordys Process Factory into Google's cloud services will allow organisations of all sizes to create innovative new workflows and processes around their Google Apps investments. They can also link them with their current on-premise application processes to build and run structured 'situational' applications to track and monitor business processes such as budget approval, talent management and change control. All of this will be achieved through the simplicity of browser-enabled cloud orchestration.

This kind of enterprise cloud orchestration could represent a radical shift in the way BPM and workflow-type business applications are built and deployed in the cloud. Processes are the lifeblood of any organisation, and IT applications they deploy must be able to incorporate process innovation for competitive differentiation to better meet the needs of the business and the customers it serves.

The orchestration also helps companies to exploit the potential of the cloud as an enterprise applications platform. In the case of Cordys-Google Apps, it promises to make BPM-enabled office applications in the cloud a reality - not to mention an attempt to whisk away first bragging rights from Microsoft software and services with a non-mainstream office suite - and with minimal risk because there are no downloads, no installation, no upfront licence costs (only pay per use) and no complex and time-consuming projects. Additionally, it also promises to include business users that have previously been excluded in the development of corporate web applications.

Hence the combination of the high-availability benefits of a cloud infrastructure at a low cost, and the availability of an orchestration layer for applications that run in it, can deliver significant IT and business advantages. Software companies that have hitherto cast a weary and sceptical eye over the web-based applications model should therefore reconsider their cloud development strategies in light of this development. They have little to lose, but quite a lot to gain.

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