This makes Tibco's the first ESB to back the OASIS specification, the company said. The new ESB, which has the version number 5.4, also features expanded security capabilities and 64-bit platform support. Tibco categorizes BusinessWorks as a suite of technologies constituting an ESB.

As an ESB, BusinessWorks can be used in enterprise SOA deployments. It provides such functions as mediation of messages, in which a SOAP message, for example, could be received over HTTP and sent back out via Java Message Service. Full-scale orchestration for specifying process flows for activities also is enabled.

"The biggest single addition [in version 5.4] is support for BPEL 2.0, which is the first standard version of BPEL," said Rourke McNamara, senior product manager for SOA at Tibco.

BPEL provides a common framework for orchestration of processes, akin to how SQL is used in working with databases, according to Tibco. It features a language for specifying business-process behavior based on Web services.

Version 1.1 of BPEL, which has been available for deployment, was never formally ratified as an OASIS standard, a status soon to be bestowed on the 2.0 version of the specification, McNamara said.