Implementing SOA: Total Architecture in Practice

Chapter 6. Processes

Any discussion of processes must begin with a basic understanding of what a process is. The dictionary defines a process to be a series of actions leading to a goal. This definition, however, is a bit vague with respect to marking the beginning and ending of the process and the nature of the steps in between. Business processes, at least the repeatable ones supported by information systems, have discrete starting points and discrete ends. They have discrete steps, and produce discrete results. These processes fall into the category of processes known as discrete processes.¹

A discrete process is a sequence of discrete activities whose performance is triggered by a discrete external event and whose execution produces (or ...