JBPM is a platform for workflow, business process management, and process orchestration. BPM is critical to SOA because SOA is all about integrating business processes and publishing services, said Pierre Fricke, JBoss director of product management.

Also supporting jPDL (Java Process Definition Language), jBPM has become a popular item, according to Fricke. "JBPM download rates have tripled in the past year. We're now north of 20,000 downloads per month," Fricke said.

"Up until jBPM was available, the Java programmer that wanted to do workflow, that wanted to do BPM-type of work within a Java program, had to buy very expensive packages," he said.

BPEL 1.1 will be added to jBPM in September, with BPEL 2.0 due sometime afterward. The 2.0 version is expected to become the OASIS-approved version of the specification.

"The spec's being finalized right now," and will feature improved process constructs, Fricke said. JBoss is participating in development at BPEL at OASIS, he added.