nginn Wiki Rss Feed

Updated Wiki: Home

rafal_g — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:18:43 GMT

Project Description
NGinn.BPM - a BPM / Workflow engine for Microsoft.Net

It's a lightweight workflow manager based on Petri nets and taking some ideas from BPMN. NGinn BPM helps automate business processes in large organizations, such as telecoms, by enabling to build workflows that coordinate human work and flow of data between applications. The main goals of NGInn design are elasticity, simplicity and ease of integration.

It's a permanent work in progress project with some production deployments. Developed mainly in C# and using MS SQL as a database backend.

Related projects:

nginn-messagebus - [url:http://code.google.com/p/nginn-messagebus] - publish-subscribe message bus based on SQL Server
nginn-exchange - [url:http://code.google.com/p/nginn-exchange] - MS Exchange integration framework

Visit the NGinn BPM Blog

Updated Wiki: Home

rafal_g — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:18:01 GMT

Updated Wiki: Home

rafal_g — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:17:10 GMT

Updated Wiki: Home

rafal_g — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:16:01 GMT

Updated Wiki: Test

rafal_g — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:53:10 GMT

Related projects:

nginn-messagebus - http://code.google.com/p/nginn-messagebus - publish-subscribe message bus based on SQL Server
nginn-exchange - http://code.google.com/p/nginn-exchange - MS Exchange integration framework

Updated Wiki: NGinn Roadmap

rafal_g — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:13:59 GMT

NGinn Roadmap

(rather a TODO list than a roadmap)

1.BPMN compatibility

Create an import tool that will convert BPMN (xml format) into NGinn process definition language. Find a decent & free BPMN graphic editor and make it work with NGinn

2.WCF

Replace .Net Remoting with WCF.

3.Custom process control/data exchange web services

Auto-generated, strong-typed integration web services for each process hosted in NGinn. Each web service will use data structures defined in the process definition and will allow the client to start a new process instance, update an existing instance and retrieve current process data.
Current status: some preliminary work has been done

4.MS Exchange integration

Provide a set of MS Exchange tasks for performing basic MS Exchange operations (sending/receiving mail, managing calendar and creating Outlook tasks)
Update: see http://code.google.com/p/nginn-exchange for some work in progress

5.NGinn management/monitoring GUI

Web based user interface for managing and monitoring NGinn operation

6.Active Directory/LDAP integration

Provide a set of tasks for accessing and modifying user information in LDAP / AD databases

7.Basic 'TODO list' application for Nginn

An example implementation of 'user tasks' application that shows how to integrate with NGinn. This could evolve into a full-blown user GUI
Implementation of the WS-HumanTask standard in NGinn and the TODO application

8.Document database support

Enabling NGinn to work with a document database (NoSQL).

Updated Wiki: NGinn Roadmap

rafal_g — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:35:26 GMT

NGinn Roadmap

(rather a TODO list than a roadmap)

1.BPMN compatibility

Create an import tool that will convert BPMN (xml format) into NGinn process definition language. Find a decent & free BPMN graphic editor and make it work with NGinn

2.WCF

Replace .Net Remoting with WCF.

3.Custom process control/data exchange web services

4.MS Exchange integration

Provide a set of MS Exchange tasks for performing basic MS Exchange operations (sending/receiving mail, managing calendar and creating Outlook tasks)

5.NGinn management/monitoring GUI

Web based user interface for managing and monitoring NGinn operation

6.Active Directory/LDAP integration

Provide a set of tasks for accessing and modifying user information in LDAP / AD databases

7.Basic 'TODO list' application for Nginn

8.Document database support

Enabling NGinn to work with a document database (NoSQL).

Updated Wiki: NGinn Roadmap

rafal_g — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:26:21 GMT

NGinn Roadmap

1.BPMN compatibility

Create an import tool that will convert BPMN (xml format) into NGinn process definition language. Find a decent & free BPMN graphic editor and make it work with NGinn

2.WCF

Replace .Net Remoting with WCF.

3.Custom process control/data exchange web services

4.MS Exchange integration

Provide a set of MS Exchange tasks for performing basic MS Exchange operations (sending/receiving mail, managing calendar and creating Outlook tasks)

5.NGinn management/monitoring GUI

Web based user interface for managing and monitoring NGinn operation

6.Active Directory/LDAP integration

Provide a set of tasks for accessing and modifying user information in LDAP / AD databases

7.Basic 'TODO list' application for Nginn

8.Document database support

Enabling NGinn to work with a document database (NoSQL).

Updated Wiki: Documentation

rafal_g — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:06:45 GMT

NGinn Roadmap
Nginn basic information
IdeasForNewFeatures

Updated Wiki: IdeasForNewFeatures

rafal_g — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:06:23 GMT

1. WS-HumanTask standard support
A nice thing to have, probably the only standard for creating tasks in external applications
status: idea only

2. WSDL 2.0 support
By some conversion tool that translates WSDL into NGinn process definition language
status: idea only

Updated Wiki: IdeasForNewFeatures

rafal_g — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:05:37 GMT

WS-HumanTask standard support

A nice thing to have, probably the only standard for creating tasks in external applications
status: idea only

WSDL 2.0 support

By some conversion tool that translates WSDL into NGinn process definition language
status: idea only

Updated Wiki: NGinn basic information

rafal_g — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 11:13:26 GMT

NGinn.BPM basic information

What is NGinn.BPM and why was it created

It's a workflow engine for Microsoft.Net. It was built mainly because its author (me) wanted to check how hard is it to build a real workflow engine and besides I had some ideas about how to make it a really nice tool.
The motivation behind NGinn BPM is

to provide a workflow engine capable of running BPMN or similar process definition language
changes and modifications to processes should be as simple as possible, ideally without stopping the application
provide a set of ready to use tasks that can be used in processes and that really do something useful. This should be ready to use, not ready for further development.
easily embeddable and extensible, lightweight at the same time
fault tolerant as much as possible
good performance, able to handle millions of process instances per month
must be able to integrate with existing infrastructure and use existing applications (e.g. user database or a 'TODO list' application).

NGinn does not use workflow foundation (as in 2007, when I was thinking about NGinn, the WF wasn't good at all). It's based on Petri nets instead.

What 'processes' or 'workflows' are we talking about

This project is about providing software tools for supporting business processes in organizations. The 'business process' can be described as a formal procedure for providing some service or producing something (we are concentrating on what is the procedure and how efficiently it is performed, not on what the end product is). The procedure consists of individual steps, called 'tasks', that can have various interdependencies (for example: task C can be done only after performing tasks A and B). Tasks can be performed by humans (manual tasks) or automatically by software, and the workflow engine's job is to make sure all these tasks are executed exactly as specified in the process definition.

How does NGinn.BPM work

NGinn.BPM is a process execution engine that runs processes according to process definitions. It provides an execution environment and a number of integration interfaces that allow the interaction between external applications and NGinn.

NGinn.BPM vs MS Workflow Foundation

Is it ready for production use

Partially. Some components can be used in production (and have been used already), but NGinn.BPM is not a complete product. Many components are missing (deliberately or not) and some functionalities need to be provided by external applications.

Updated Wiki: NGinn basic information

rafal_g — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:39:38 GMT

NGinn.BPM basic information

What is NGinn.BPM and why was it created

to provide a workflow engine capable of running BPMN or similar process definition language
changes and modifications to processes should be as simple as possible, ideally without stopping the application
provide a set of ready to use tasks that can be used in processes and that really do something useful. This should be ready to use, not ready for further development.
easily embeddable and extensible, lightweight at the same time
fault tolerant as much as possible
good performance, able to handle millions of process instances per month
must be able to integrate with existing infrastructure and use existing applications (e.g. user database or a 'TODO list' application).

NGinn does not use workflow foundation (as in 2007, when I was thinking about NGinn, the WF wasn't good at all). It's based on Petri nets instead.

What 'processes' or 'workflows' are we talking about

How does NGinn.BPM work

NGinn.BPM vs MS Workflow Foundation

Is it ready for production use

Partially. Some components can be used in production (and have been used already), but NGinn.BPM is not a complete product.

Updated Wiki: NGinn basic information

rafal_g — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:27:15 GMT

NGinn.BPM basic information

What is NGinn.BPM and why was it created

to provide a workflow engine capable of running BPMN or similar process definition language
changes and modifications to processes should be as simple as possible, ideally without stopping the application
provide a set of ready to use tasks that can be used in processes and that really do something useful. This should be ready to use, not ready for further development.
easily embeddable and extensible, lightweight at the same time
fault tolerant as much as possible
good performance, able to handle millions of process instances per month
must be able to integrate with existing infrastructure and use existing applications (e.g. user database or a 'TODO list' application).

NGinn does not use workflow foundation (as in 2007, when I was thinking about NGinn, the WF wasn't good at all). It's based on Petri nets instead.

What 'processes' or 'workflows' are we talking about

This project is about providing software tools for supporting business processes. The 'business process' can be described as a formal procedure for providing some service or producing something (we are concentrating on what is the procedure and how efficiently it is performed, not on what the end product is). The procedure consists of individual steps, called 'tasks', that can have various interdependencies (for example: task C can be done only after performing tasks A and B). Tasks can be performed by humans (manual tasks) or automatically by software, and the workflow engine's job is to make sure all these tasks are executed exactly as specified in the process definition.

How does NGinn.BPM work

NGinn.BPM vs MS Workflow Foundation

Is it ready for production use

Updated Wiki: NGinn basic information

rafal_g — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:39:09 GMT

NGinn.BPM basic information

What is NGinn.BPM and why was it created

to provide a workflow engine capable of running BPMN or similar process definition language
changes and modifications to processes should be as simple as possible, ideally without stopping the application
provide a set of ready to use tasks that can be used in processes and that really do something useful. This should be ready to use, not ready for further development.
easily embeddable and extensible, lightweight at the same time
fault tolerant as much as possible
good performance, able to handle millions of process instances per month
must be able to integrate with existing infrastructure and use existing applications (e.g. user database or a 'TODO list' application).

NGinn does not use workflow foundation (as in 2007 the WF wasn't good at all). It's based on Petri nets instead.

Updated Wiki: NGinn basic information

rafal_g — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:37:38 GMT

NGinn.BPM basic information

What is NGinn.BPM and why was it created

to provide a workflow engine capable of running BPMN or similar processes
changes and modifications to processes should be as simple as possible, ideally without stopping the application
provide a set of ready to use tasks that can be used in processes and that really do something useful. This should be ready to use, not ready for further development.
easily embeddable and extensible, lightweight at the same time
fault tolerant as much as possible
good performance, able to handle millions of process instances per month
must be able to integrate with existing infrastructure and use existing applications (e.g. user database or a 'TODO list' application).

NGinn does not use workflow foundation (as in 2007 the WF wasn't good at all). It's based on Petri nets instead.

Updated Wiki: Documentation

rafal_g — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:32:58 GMT

NGinn Roadmap
Nginn basic information

Updated Wiki: NGinn Roadmap

rafal_g — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:31:51 GMT

NGinn Roadmap

1.BPMN compatibility

Create an import tool that will convert BPMN (xml format) into NGinn process definition language. Find a decent & free BPMN graphic editor and make it work with NGinn

2.WCF

Replace .Net Remoting with WCF.

3.Custom process control/data exchange web services

4.MS Exchange integration

Provide a set of MS Exchange tasks for performing basic MS Exchange operations (sending/receiving mail, managing calendar and creating Outlook tasks)

5.NGinn management/monitoring GUI

Web based user interface for managing and monitoring NGinn operation

6.Active Directory/LDAP integration

Provide a set of tasks for accessing and modifying user information in LDAP / AD databases

7.Basic 'TODO list' application for Nginn

An example implementation of 'user tasks' application that shows how to integrate with NGinn. This could evolve into a full-blown user GUI

8.Document database support

Enabling NGinn to work with a document database (NoSQL).

Updated Wiki: Documentation

rafal_g — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:31:31 GMT

NGinn Roadmap

Updated Wiki: ResourceDir

rafal_g — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:30:35 GMT

NGinn Roadmap