Camunda Workflow Engine

January 2, 2024 | kfupm, ictc

Summary #

Workflow engine that we (me and Dr. Khayyat) selected as Business Process() Workflow engine to replace Oracle Buisiness workflow engine.

Supported Programming Languages to interact with workflow engine #

Cockpit #

ref Discover issues before they impact end users Cockpit gives you a real-time view of BPMN processes and DMN decision tables as they run, so you can monitor their status and quickly identify technical incidents that slow down or stop workflows. For example:

A process task called an API service and the API responded with an error message or corrupt data
An event or conditional flow in a process failed because of missing data
A process tried to execute code that returned an error
A subprocess encountered a BPMN error

Camunda 7 #

Database supported #

PostgreSQL
MySQL
Oracle Database
Microsoft SQL Server (Microsoft SQL Server)
H2 Database (for testing and development)
MariaDB

Zebee #

:ID: 6E7BC76F-89CA-4094-961A-6C4224354902

Camunda 8, however, uses the Zeebe engine, a process engine that has been developed over the last five years and is therefore still quite new.
Distributed Workflow Engine for microservices Orchestration ref
In contrast to the Camunda 7 engine, it is scalable both horizontally and linearly.
Therefore, it is particularly suitable for operation in the cloud and for the automation processes with a huge number of process instances.
Unlike Camunda 7, Zeebe does not rely on a relational database(RDBMS), which was the major bottleneck for scaling the engine
Uses RocksDBj, non-RDBMS, non-relation database for scalability.
ref

Architecture #

Before Camunda 8

Workflow Development process #

We have helped clients to create Camunda workflows to keep them separate outside of applications

to manage and monitor enterprise processes effectively to avoid hard coding the enterprise process inside an application.

I have used camunda as workflow engine to automate the processes, to centralize the enterprise tasks at one place to allow user to monitor and manage tasks assigned to them.
We used Java to create BPMN workflow and integrate these workflow in Django based applications.
We used React and Angular to add custom custom UI to features and display data not present generic display of cockpit app by using camunda engine’s rich REST APIs.
The flow of development with camunda: the business team with BA creates using Camunda’s Desktop modeler
the BPMN worfklow is then handed over to the enterprise architecture department to validate feasibility of implementing the workflow with available data, microservices and integrations available.
after the feedabck from the enterprise team and finalizing the workflow the BA will give the BPMN process to the developer to develop.
After the approval the developers will implement the workflow using Java SDK of Camunda and deploy the process using Spring Boot and serve the process with Apache Tomcat Server.
After the successful deployment of the process, the application will interact with the process to update the process.
The deployed processes were monitored by enterprise

Meetings <2021-05-27 Thu> #

Meeting with Camunda to buy ,adhoc, support from vendor partner #

AlMoayyed ,Bahrain, is the Vendor partner of Camunda. #

https://camunda.com/partners/almoayyed_computers_middle_east/

Main point: support without buying enterprise version

support when required only included in enterprise edition Even the vendor partner give support with enterprise edition only.
Software installation, package debian, is different for enterprise yes

License #

Ballpark fees 100k Euros a year for enterprise edition with support.

100k Euros is minimum. 45k Euro 5000 process instance per year.
Metrics to estimate the license fee
subscription is annual
based on our estimates they will give us tiers to subscribe.
setting up cluster availability in ? remote consulting hours can be used to set clusters. Jira tickting systems. in depth discussion -> consulting.

started or running instance in a year? even started and deleted are counted as started for licensing.
breakdown they will send a document with details.

KFUPM
Roughly around application or process is generating around 4k instances in a year. Minimum tier will not be sufficient to the KFUPM use case.