Deployment comparison

Edit online

Compare the capabilities and key differences of IBM® Business Automation Workflow across deployment environments, including considerations for modern container-based deployments.

Note: In the following table, IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional refers to the Standard edition unless noted otherwise. Differences for IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional Advanced are indicated where they apply.

For additional feature support information, see Feature support in Business Automation Workflow on containers.

Table 1. Comparison of capability support across deployment environments
Capability IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional Standard IBM Business Automation Workflow on containers Business Automation Workflow or Workflow Process Service in IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
API Key support for exposed REST services No Yes Yes
Business Automation Workflow Advanced capabilities (BPEL, SCA, MFC) Yes No No
Exposing service flows and processes as asynchronous operations of REST services No Yes Yes
Exposing service flows and processes as Kafka services No Yes Yes
Exposing service flows and processes as MQ services No Yes Yes
FISMA audit logging No No Yes
Not supported for IBM Connectivity Pack
Generative AI activity
  • Model Gateway
  • ECM document support
Yes on watsonx.ai
  • No (no external LLM provider support)
  • Yes
Yes
  • Supported on OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) only
  • Yes
 Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes for Business Automation Workflow
    No for Workflow Process Service
HashiCorp Vault Integration N/A No Yes
Importing business objects in Workflow Process Designer No Yes Yes
Instana integration No No Yes
Intelligent Task Prioritization Yes Yes Yes
Invoking MQ-based automation services No Yes Yes
Metrics: View deployment metrics
  • Yes for Business Automation Workflow traditional Standard
  • No for Business Automation Workflow traditional Advanced
 Yes Yes
Metrics: View usage metrics No Yes Yes
Microsoft Exchange / email support No Yes Yes
OAuth client credential flow support for external REST service invocation No Yes Yes
OpenAPI 3.0 objects without properties No Yes Yes
Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) N/A Yes Yes
Process Federation Server Yes Yes Yes
Scalability and resiliency Traditional WebSphere® Application Server Scaling Yes Yes
Transaction support in service flows No Yes Yes
Turbonomics integration No Yes Yes
Watsonx.ai LWE (Lightweight Engine) No No Yes
Watsonx Orchestrate AI agent invocation No Yes Yes
Workflow Authoring Assistant (technology preview) Yes, with limitation:
  • No high availability support
 Yes Yes
Workflow runtime MCP server No Yes Yes
Workforce Insights No Yes Yes
Workplace Assistant Yes, with limitations:
  • No high availability support
  • No support for content tools
Yes Yes