Section: Software

Bonita Flexible Workflow Management System

Participants : François Charoy [ contact ] , Oscar Barrios, Claude Godart.

The first version of the Bonita workflow management system has been released in 2004 with a LGPL license. A new version called Nova Bonita  (http://bonita.objectweb.org/ ) has been released in 2008 with a LGPL license (Nova Bonita exploits the Process Virtual Machine  (http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2007/05/07/the-process-virtual-machine.html )). Bonita is now directly supported by a startup company, BonitaSoft, created in 2009. The CEO of BonitaSoft is Miguel Valdes Faura, a former member of the ECOO team who contributed to the development of the first releases.

The Bonita workflow model is defined as a classical graph based one, but with an advanced execution model that allows different kinds of execution strategies: from classical and automatic, to less constrained and user driven. Another difference with classical models is that process definition can be dynamic: Bonita supports direct process instantiation and execution. A new process can be created by cloning another running or finished process and then adapted to specific needs. Process fragment importation is also possible. Bonita (http://www.bonitasoft.com/ ) is now implemented on the Process Virtual Machine and can be integrated in different kinds of applications. Bonita is embedded in several largely distributed software and has gained recently a lot of press coverage.