jBPM 6.0 Beta2 available

For developers that want to have a sneak peak at what's coming in jBPM 6.0, we've just released jBPM 6.0.0.Beta2.  We've added several large improvements:

• jbpm-console, our web-based management console (where you can start new process instances, complete your task list, etc.) has been redesigned completely


• new task UI

• new process instance management UI
  
  
  
• one web application that combines the entire life cycle (process modeling, deployment, execution and monitoring) into one web application
  
• based on UberFire, which provides a configurable and pluggable workspace

• RuntimeManager allows you to easily get access to a ksession and/or task service without needing to worry about how to create the session, where to find it, how to link it to the task service, etc.  There are predefined strategies for:
• singleton: one singleton session is used to execute all requests
• session per request: a new session is used for each request (and destroyed afterwards)
• session per process instance: each process instance has its own session context, all commands for that process instance are automatically executed in that context
  
  
• jbpm-services: core engine exposed as a service that can be deployed in a clustered environment, with lots of smaller improvements as well:
• timer service that will be able to handle timers in a clustered environment and automatically restore the appropriate sessions if timers need to be fired
• instead of using the process instance id as the unique identifier of one specific process instance, you can also correlate with your own business key now
• history logging has been extended to log additional information and an asychronous logger (using JMS) is available as well
• all services are exposed using CDI
• ! Note that remoting capabilities using REST / JMS are currently not available yet in Beta2 but will be available soon

• The Guvnor repository has been refactored:
• The repository back-end is implemented using a Virtual File System (VFS) with a git back-end as the default implementation.  This allows you to connect to your repository taking advantage of all the features that GIT provides out-of-the-box.
• The repository now uses maven to build all the processes, rules, models, forms etc. in your projects and produces kjars (knowledge jars).  These kjars can be treated as normal maven dependencies in your projects and the repository exposes itself as a maven repository as well.

• A Dashboard web application can be used to monitor your system and generate meaningful reports.  Some default reports are available out-of-the-box (showing information about running process instances, outstanding tasks, etc.), but the tool can also be used to combine those with your own business datam create your own KPIs and customized reports.
  


• Improved exception handling when performing service tasks, where the process that requested the service could be notified using a combination of techniques, including boundary events, event sub-processes, intermediate events, etc.
  
• The new Eclipse BPMN2 Modeler replaced the old BPMN2 editor and has been extended to support a lot more constructs.  Designer has been updated accordingly as well.

• Designer now supports the BPSim 1.0 specification for simulating your processes.

You can download the installer from here and follow the installer documentation and screencasts (below) to get your first processes running, both in Eclipse (for developers and in the web (for business analysts or even end users as well).

Note that this is a beta release, so unfortunately, most of the documentation is still missing, and there probably are some rough edges and/or bugs in there.  But do give it a try and let us know, so we can try to still improve these.