JBPM interview questions For Freshers & Experienced

JBPM, expanded as Java Business Process Model is an open-source toolkit that is used to automate the business process and decisions by building business applications. It is a workflow engine that is written in JAVA for automating the business process and decisions. Released under JBoss company and sponsored by Red Hat, JBPM has a process that is composed of tasks with sequence flows connected between them. JBPM is originated from BPM and is now evolved to enable users to make business automation. It is also used as standalone or embedded in customer service and is successfully used with JEE applications, standalone java programs, etc.

JBPM is mainly used to automate the business flow. The JBPM is a Java-based Business Process Management (BPM) suite that is used to model, execute, and fully monitor the business process. With JBPM, you can model your business goals by depicting a flow chart that describes the step needed to achieve to execute the goal. The workflow engine in the JBPM allows you to run the business process in any java environment.

The JTA (Java Transaction API) is used to run a distributed transaction by an application. It specifies the Java interface between the transaction manager and other applications in the distributed transaction system to access and update data on two or more networked computers. The JTA is one of the Java Enterprise Edition APIs that is developed under the Java Community Process. It consists of three main elements, transaction interface, manager interface, and standard transactional resource manager.

BPM (Business Process Management) is a process automation tool to effectively run a business process. It has various methods like modeling, automating, managing, and optimization to automate the business process. With BPM, you can map the business process, eliminate bottlenecks, control the cost in the process, and finally automate the process effectively.

It provides complete lifecycle management of the business process.

The JBPM is a java-based Business Process Management toolkit for building a business application to automate the business process. Written in Java, JBPM is an open-source toolkit that enables the users to pick their path in business automation. It can be used as a standalone or embedded service.

Some of the advantages in JBPM 5 are,

JBPM 5 is the most powerful and advanced open-source BPMN 2 engine. It is a lightweight, and extensible tool. It can be integrated into your application or deployed as a standalone service. It allows dynamic adaptations and has flexibility for handling complex real-life problems. With JBPM 5, the support for the latest BPMN 2.0 specification is present that is used to model and execute a business process. It also has a new business repository with improved support for domain-specific processes. The API with the JBPM 5 is also revamped for managing the business process, business rules, and complex event processing.

Some of the major advantages of using the Rule Engine are,

• It makes easy to understand for a business analyst or a new developer.
• It has improved maintainability.
• It is flexible. That is, the rule engine is better when writing changes to the data model.
• It has high reusability as the rules are kept in one place.
• It is possible for redeployment and unification of the rules and processes.

Drools is an open-source business logic integration platform that allows the users to separate and reason over logic and data in the business process. It is a collection of tools that are backed by JBoss and Red Hat and it implements the Rete Pattern Matching algorithm.

The two main parts of the drools are Authoring and Runtime.

1. Authoring allows the creation of rules files (.DRL files).
2. Runtime allows the creation of working memory and handling activation.

The three main components of the JBPM are execution component, runtime component, and modeling & deployment component.

The Execution component has,

• Core engine – it is a workflow engine that is used to execute the business process.
• Human Task Services – it provides the human task lifecycle for executing the task with the interaction of human actors.
• Persistence – It persists all instances and log audit information states.
• CDI/REST/JMS – it is used to connect the application with a core engine by using Java API.

The modeling and deployment component has,

• Process Designer – it provides the graphic editor for viewing and editing the business process.
• Data modeler – it is used for viewing, editing, and creating data models by non-technical users.
• Form modeler – it is used to create, generate, and edit forms during task execution.
• Rules authoring – it is used to specify different business rules for the business process.
• Guvnor repository – it has all types of assets to be used in the business repository.

The runtime management has,

• Process Management – It has features to manage process instances like staring, stopping, and inspecting instance.

The JBPM services are used to embed the business process management capabilities in our application. Some of the services are,

Deployment services – It is used to deploy or redeploy units. It also provides the information of available deployment units and runtime manager instances.

Definition services – it is used to extract important information from the process and provides it to inform users. The information it provides is process definition, process variable, service task, user task, and input and output information.

Process services – It provides access to the execution environment. It allows to start new process instances and work with the existing process.

Runtime Data Services – It is used to start process instances and execute node instances.

User Task Services – It is used to manage individual user tasks. It allows modifying selected properties, access to task variables, access to task attachments, access to task comments.

The workbench is a web-based application that covers the entire life cycle of BPM projects from authorization to monitoring. It has a git repository service to store business artifacts and promotes version control. It provides an interface to manage the business process by providing visualization support. It has a collaboration feature for enabling multiple actors to work on the same project.

To integrate LDAP with JBPM, first, install and configure the LDAP server. OpenLDAP is a good LDAP server that can be freely installed and configured. After configuring the server, it is time to configure the application server where the JBPM console is hosted to authenticate the users using LDAP.

The JBoss AS7 configuration needs to be changed and the standalone.xml file should be replaced to support the LDAP in JBPM.