10 Steps to Cloud Happiness: Step 5 - Real Process Improvement

Step 5 - Winning with process improvement.

Every journey starts at the beginning and this journey's no exception, a journey of 10 steps to cloud happiness

As previously presented in the introduction, it's possible to find cloud happiness through a journey focused on the storyline of digital transformation and the need to deliver applications in to a cloud service.

Application delivery and all it's moving parts such as containers, cloud, platform as a service (PaaS) and a digital journey requires some planning to get started. There's nothing like hands-on steps to quickly leverage real experiences as you prepare.

Previously we covered how to get a cloud, the use of a service catalog, how to add cloud operations functionality, and centralizing business logic so what's next?

Process improvement

Open technology for business process improvements
in container development model.

Notice the action here is improvement of processes in a business, while often the words used are process discovery or process optimization. Distinctly narrowing the focus to existing processes allows for easy, quick wins around improving those processes.

Trying to discovery new processes requires a significant investment, while optimizing existing processes involves deep analysis of the existing process landscape. Assuming the processes in place are known, then selecting a few easy to add improvements, ensures small inexpensive updates to reap the maximum benefits for an organization. Aiming for these lofty goals must include the process developers, the exact people who know which changes are easy and have that visible impact to further encourage improvements. Identifying the improvements that are most impactful ensures value generation for the business owners of the process in question.

Achieving improvements while using open technologies, such as JBoss BPM Suite, ensures future flexibility while easing the need for complex integration issues in existing process architectures. The easiest way to get started is with this container deployment of JBoss BPM Suite. Below are the instructions that include installing OCP as outlined in step one of this series called, Get a Cloud.

JBoss BPM Suite on OpenShift

1. First ensure you have an OpenShift container based installation, such as one of the following installed first:
• OCP Install Demo
• or your own OpenShift installation.
2. Download and unzip this demo.
3. Download JBoss EAP & JBoss BPM Suite, add to installs directory (see installs/README).
4. Run 'init.sh' or 'init.bat' file. 'init.bat' must be run with Administrative privileges:

   # The installation needs to be pointed to a running version
   # of OpenShift, so pass an IP address such as:
   #
   $ ./init.sh 192.168.99.100  # example for OCP.

Now log in to JBoss BPM Suite and start developing containerized process projects (the address will be generated by the init script).

• OCP example: http://rhcs-bpms-install-demo-appdev-in-cloud.192.168.99.100.nip.io/business-central ( u:erics / p:bpmsuite1! )

Not sure how to get started with JBoss BPM Suite? Try one of these online workshops to build a first project from scratch.

Leveraging open technologies, open source and open standards brings your process improvement projects in to the fast lane for success.

Rest of the story

Looking for container-based application delivery
solution and hybrid cloud ready?

If you are looking for the introduction to the 10 steps series or any of the individual steps:

1. Get a Cloud
2. Use a Service Catalog
3. Adding Cloud Operations
4. Centralize Business Logic
5. Real Process Improvement
6. Human Aspect
7. Retail Web Shop
8. Curing Travel Woes
9. Exploring Financial Services
10. Agile Cloud Service Integration

So stay tuned as this list's tackled one-by-one over the coming weeks and months to provide you with a clear direction towards your very own application delivery in the cloud happiness.