This topic applies only to the IBM Business Process Manager Standard configuration.

This topic applies only to the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced configuration.

Getting started with Process Federation Server

IBM® Process Federation Server is an optional component for IBM BPM environments. Install this component to create a federated process environment that provides business users with a single point of access to their task list and launch list, regardless of the type of process that they are working on and the IBM BPM backend system on which the process artifacts are stored.

Consider installing Process Federation Server in the following situations:

Your process applications are deployed on different IBM BPM deployment environments. Your users must log on to several different Process Portals to get their work done.
Your users work with both BPD-related and BPEL-related processes and tasks.
Your IBM BPM environment contains multiple versions of IBM BPM that each runs a different version of the same process application. Your users need to work with the older versions of the process applications while process instances are still running, which means that they need to log on to the Process Portal application that runs on the associated version of IBM BPM.

The following figure shows an overview of a federated environment and how Process Federation Server provides a single point of access to business users for all their tasks regardless of the IBM BPM system on which the tasks reside.

The graphic shows the elements of a federated environment: a Responsive Portal is communicates with Process Federation Server, which in turn communicates with the federated IBM BPM systems.

Process Federation Server aggregates both BPD and BPEL-related tasks from all the IBM BPM backend systems, including systems that run previous versions of IBM BPM that are supported by Process Federation Server. You can take advantage of this support to gradually phase out process applications that are still running on previous versions, while new versions of the process applications run on the latest release of IBM BPM. For more information about the IBM BPM versions that are supported by Process Federation Server, see Technote 1699090.

Responsive Federated Portal is a new sample coach-based portal that you can use as a starting point for creating and extending your own portals. It is available as a technology demonstration from IBM Bluemix DevOps Services. You can configure Responsive Federated Portal to work on a single system by using the BPD-related REST APIs that are provided with IBM BPM Standard. For federated environments, configure Responsive Federated Portal to use the REST APIs that are provided with Process Federation Server. For more information, see Accessing the Responsive Federated Portal technology demonstration.

Attention: Because Process Portal does not exploit federated APIs, you can use it only on single IBM BPM systems.