A runtime software as a service model of Java BPM engine for multi-tenancy

The ever growing need of Business Process Management (BPM) for enterprises has motivated the prevalence of BPM engines. However, some BPM engines are inherently designed for single tenancy, i.e., jBPM (Java BPM), so it is of significance to populate it to the multi-tenancy model. This paper focuses on the multi-tenancy feature on one hand, and the challenge of customization on the other. First, a runtime SaaS model in terms of multi-tenancy is proposed where a pool of BPM engines constitutes the core. In-depth analysis reveals a characteristic of BPM workflows, namely Interactivity in this paper, and it is proposed that the Interactivity feature should be taken into account for multi-tenancy scheduling. Second, an Administrative Approval System (AAS) is implemented as a motivating case study to demonstrate the utility of runtime SaaS model, and in particular the customization challenge is investigated in great details. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of runtime SaaS model and customization is acquired with elegant scalability.