Freaky Tech Friday - Attack of the Zombie Processes!

Well, I see you have come back for yet another tale of spine tingling terror. So far we have faced and survived together, It Came from Another Platform as well as The Abyss Of Integration. Now we venture into the wastelands, that once were filled with productive people. Now Zombie Processes have invaded, and are draining value from your current ERP legacy system. What exactly is a Zombie Process you may ask, let me explain...


Zombie - "typically depicted as mindless, shambling, decaying corpses."

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Process - "typically describes the action of taking something through an established and usually routine set of procedures."

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Zombie Process - "A mindless, shambling, decaying set of actions continued to be executed based on estalbished and forgetton procedures, that are very much routine."



With this set, then how would one avoid the horde, of mass decaying processes? How can you fend off this attack? Enter Super AX 2012, to save the day! With it's aresnal of weapons, AX 2012 can help beat back the onslaught of decaying processes in your company, with it's ability to agile, Dynamic in nature, and flexible as your business needs it to be.



With all the marketing taking out, in the real world, you can overcome process that are rigid, or where other legacy ERP systems have solidified you, and your innovation, with electronic concrete. I've seen AX 2012, in the wild now, battling through old harden processes, and slamming through the painfully stiff concrete walls that existed because of a legacy systems limits.

If anything, I think the issue is understanding the best path to take for value gained, as there are a lot of ways to solve business requirements with what AX 2012 offers, that never really existed before.

This warning of Zombie Processes, is also for Partners. We have to think differently than ever before in how we approach issues, and solutions to those issues. There are a lot of new design patterns, and ways things should be done with new processes, code, approaches to business requirements in general.

Some really clear examples of how AX 2012 makes the threat of Zombie processes forming an unstoppable hoard, can be seen in recent post's that I've spent a lot of time. First the Modeling the world, concept that can be seen specifically in the desired vision to use Workflows in AX 2012 to enable business process modeling.



With this, business processes are much more flexible, as they were modeled using the .Net Workflow designer. In the past workflows were not as flexible, in terms of AX, until AX 2012. The benefit in this, is that you can code less and model more, for business processes, and in turn business process management can have real impact on the process within AX.

When the business needs flexibility to change, it's very possible, and doesn't cost, or shouldn't cost, an arm and a leg, or a few hundred brains, to change. This focus on modeling is really a key concept, one that truly makes AX 2012 a generational shift in ERP technology. I mean if a business can change it's workflow in it's ERP package, with little technical help, how fast a business can move is up to them. No limited by brain eating zombie processes!

To wrap up, the take away, is a focus on modeling with AX 2012. This includes business process modeling, as well as other key concepts like organizational, security, etc. Focus your functional and technical designs for these area's around the latest design patterns and key concepts. There are a lot of great new things in AX 2012, and modeling business processes with workflows is for sure one of those area's.

Well, looks like we will survive the Zombie Process Apocalypse, thanks to our super hero, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. A powerful weapon, in the rights hands of a trusted Partner. Scare you next week Ghosts and Ghouls, when we dare enter "The Killing Zone".

Update: I did want to tip my hat to the *nix crowd, in that these Zombie Processes have nothing in relation to the term used for Unix / Linux OS Zombie Processes. So there you go...

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