One of the key benefits of Business Process Management (BPM) is the ability to create a seamless “process layer” across multiple disparate systems – giving people a single interface into the process and shielding them from the complexity and overhead associated with accessing multiple systems to get a task done. This single process layer leads to a series of additional business benefits, including reduced costs, greater productivity, faster throughput, more accurate data, and increased visibility.

To successfully create this single process layer – without requiring a great deal of complex coding and expensive integration efforts – a BPM solution must be flexible and adaptable enough to fit into any existing IT environment and interact with many different types of systems.

The Metastorm BPM® Suite is built using open standards and service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology that allow it to operate and control processes seamlessly in even the most heterogeneous of environments. From .NET and Java-based applications to custom-coded legacy programs to mainframe systems, Metastorm BPM provides the architecture and the supporting tool sets to not only connect into your existing environment, but also to allow you to leverage and get greater value out of old applications.

• Platforms – Metastorm BPM is designed to leverage multiple platforms during process execution – including systems running Windows, UNIX, and mainframe operating systems. To facilitate platform interoperability, Metastorm has designed the Universal Process Orchestrators for .NET and J2EE, allowing you to leverage existing assemblies, enterprise java beans, and other code structures and convert them into Metastorm BPM-executable process components. In addition, Metastorm Integration Manager allows native process control on legacy, mainframe, and custom-built systems. Metastorm BPM is .NET architected and is a Microsoft Gold Certified software application.
  
  
• SOA and EA, BPA & BPM – The key to success for SOA is ultimately the value it can deliver to the business. SOA will have established its foothold when business professionals gain the ability to control their own processes and rules directly, as well as adapt to change rapidly and correctly. Beyond that, SOA delivers a bonus by offering a real chance for IT to deliver broad-based reuse and component-based development in a uniform technical environment. As a leader in EA, BPA and BPM innovation, Metastorm helps organizations realize business value from SOAs. Metastorm ProVision provides the foundation for SOA efforts with an integrated repository and unsurpassed modeling capabilities that enable organizations to capture critical components including strategy, business architecture, data architecture, application architecture and technology architecture. This complete enterprise visibility enables critical business and IT alignment. Building upon the capabilities of Metastorm ProVision, the Metastorm BPM suite combines the strategic advantages of business process management with the integration technology required for SOA to effectively align IT initiatives with the strategic goals of the business user at every level within the organization. This powerful synergy of the solutions within the Metastorm Enterprise™ platform provides for robust SOA support, true process improvement and greater results for the business.
  
  
• Web Services – Metastorm BPM is process-level web service enabled. Any user action in a process can be exposed as a web service and/or be called from another web service application. In addition, web service functions – whether they are developed by IT staff or exposed by other applications – can be stored in Metastorm BPM® libraries and used during the design and deployment of any process. This flexibility makes it very easy to build processes that orchestrate other applications via web services.