Technical Improvements that Make Camunda 8 so Attractive
With years of experience in automating processes for numerous businesses across multiple industries, we have inevitably encountered technical challenges in our operations. However, this is not the case with Camunda 8, which is a truly powerful platform with huge potential in intelligent process orchestration. It has many advantages, and we talked about these at our Camunda breakfast event and wrote about them in our previous articles. The new version has virtually no limitations, and now we want to review the Camunda enterprise features that make the platform so alluring for businesses of various sizes and niches.
Table of content
11 Reasons to Fall in Love with Camunda 8
1. Simple deployment
Unlike C7, which requires installing and configuring each of the components separately, C8 provides a consolidated distribution (a fat JAR and a Docker image) with all the key elements included — Zeebe, Operate, Tasklist, Optimize, and Identity. This is one of the latest features of Camunda 8, which reduces the time and effort needed for initial setup and subsequent management of the system.
Deployment Camunda 8 Core Automation previously
Default Deployment Camunda 8 Core Automation (after completion)
2. Cloud deployment support
C8 is fully compatible with Docker and Kubernetes, simplifying deployment in cloud and hybrid environments. Users can leverage out-of-the-box Helm charts for quick and easy setup in Kubernetes clusters, minimising integration and operational efforts. Since the platform supports a microservice architecture, developers can easily incorporate Camunda into their existing DevOps processes.
3. Modularity and configuration flexibility
In addition to starting the whole Camunda functionality by default, the new architecture allows users to deploy separate elements if a need arises. For example, they can configure the launch of certain nodes for faster process execution while letting other nodes only process user requests. Camunda 8 technical improvements make the platform fit for complex scenarios that require high availability, resilience, and performance in tandem with low latency.
4. Microservice architecture
By contrast with the monolithic C7 architecture, the new version is based on microservices, which allows users to deploy, scale, and update individual components independently. The new architecture makes it easy to adapt the platform to specific business needs, and the Zeebe engine ensures seamless communication across microservices. This provides complete visibility into process instances, and executes process models without breaking the isolation of services.
5. Horizontal scaling
With Camunda 8, new features like distributed architecture with clustering and data partitioning have been incorporated into the platform. This enables unlimited horizontal scaling to handle large volumes of processes easily. The advanced Zeebe engine is not bound to a central database, as data is stored in event streams and replicated across several brokers included in each cluster. As a result, IT teams don’t have to worry about system performance when the load increases, which is especially important for high-load applications.
6.Stream processing
C8 supports event processing and works with data streams, meaning it is inherently designed to respond to streams of data in real time. The event-streaming technology enables real-time data analysis and decision-making, improves operational efficiency, and ensures the system’s higher elasticity and resilience. The event-driven architecture of Camunda makes it suitable for use in modern high-load systems.
7. Unified REST API
With Camunda 8, technical improvements have been implemented that are aimed at streamlining its architecture, including a centralised REST API that covers all the platform’s components. It greatly simplifies integration with external systems and allows developers to use a single interface when working with the various features of the platform, which speeds up the development and testing process. Besides, REST is a widely used protocol, and its application across the whole range of Camunda APIs decreases the learning curve for software development teams.
Resource: https://camunda.com/camundacon-nyc-2024-on-demand-success/ , presentation by Felix Müller and Roman Smirnov
8. Asynchronous communication support
The event-streaming nature of C8 translates into decoupling publishers and subscribers to allow them to work independently and enable asynchronous processing of tasks and events. The loose coupling makes it easier to create complex, long-running processes where tasks can be executed in parallel without being blocked by response delays. The EDA (event-driven architecture) features of Camunda 8 are especially useful for scenarios requiring high flexibility in task processing.
The possibility to model processes directly in the C8 web interface while collaborating with IT/business users and performing instant testing simplifies the development process. Using the Play mode, developers can quickly make changes and immediately see the results, which speeds up iterations. Token simulation allows users of different backgrounds to simulate a process flow and see how the model will be executed under different conditions for thorough process evaluation.
10. Out-of-the-box monitoring and analytics
In Camunda 8, new features include the improved Operate and Optimize functionalities provided by default, which differs from the C7 offering that required a separate Optimize installation. With C8, system administrators and business analysts can more effectively monitor their business process performance, resolve issues in real time, and provide their companies with valuable insights into improvements and prospective areas for optimisation.
Simple example from Camunda Optimize
11. AI and ML integration
C8 supports integration with leading AI tools and platforms, allowing users to easily implement advanced AI models into their processes. Other Camunda 8 AI features include NLP-based virtual assistants that help create workflows more quickly and ML-ready datasets that simplify data preparation for machine learning models. With historical and real-time data provided by C8 and the possibility to export only instance-specific datasets, users can minimise their data cleansing efforts and combine the data with other sources for a more comprehensive view of their business processes.
Although these architectural changes and feature improvements were aimed at meeting current user needs and market demands, they also laid the foundation for future development. Camunda 8 is ready for further evolution and the adoption of new technology, which makes this version relevant not only today but for years to come.
Embedded Intelligence
Why Companies Should Migrate to Camunda 8
According to McKinsey, 84% of executives believe innovation is the key to growth, yet only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance. In our experience, the main things hampering innovation in business process management are:
- IT/Business disconnect. Since businesses and their IT departments are talking different languages, it results in a divergence between a documented request and the code that is actually delivered. Moreover, while developers stumble over ambiguous or absent documentation, business leaders believe that it takes too long for IT teams to respond to their needs and feel they often fail to deliver what business users really want. In fact, The State of Process Orchestration 2024 Report shows that over half of the respondents recognise the disconnect between IT decision-makers and business leaders around their processes.
- Siloed automation. As real-world processes consist of multiple steps, a large number of different endpoints, workflows that run in parallel, and situations requiring exception handling, it becomes more difficult to tame the increased complexity and maintain visibility into the processes. Business leaders face challenges with both spotting process issues and mapping workflows to the customer journey, stalling innovation. Although point solutions are quick and cheap to roll out, the fragmented automation doesn’t help to streamline business processes end to end and only adds to tech debt accumulation.
- Tech limitations. Modern businesses need to promptly adapt to changing customer demands, fluctuating market conditions, emerging technologies, and new regulations. Monolithic architectures, on-premise solutions, home-grown software, and legacy systems tend to limit advancement since they are difficult to integrate and not as scalable, high-performance, and flexible as modern microservice-friendly, cloud-native platforms.
- Lack of quality analytics. While companies are trying to derive maximum value from their investment, the lack of data on workflow performance and most impactful process issues often leads to building and implementing the wrong solutions, which fail to deliver the expected ROI. Without up-to-date process data, it’s also impossible to implement agile development with continuous improvements delivered in short sprints.
Migrating to a new version of the platform is a strategic decision for companies seeking to maintain competitiveness and drive innovation in the field of business process automation. With Camunda 8, they can:
- spur collaboration between business and IT stakeholders;
- empower non-technical users to self-serve and unlock new use cases with minimal IT involvement;
- establish a cohesive system of business processes that spans the entire organisation;
- ensure end-to-end visibility into processes regardless of their complexity;
- break through technology limitations;
- use solution accelerators to reduce time to value;
- deliver high availability and resilience no matter the loads;
- anticipate and adapt to changes faster;
- make data-driven decisions, and provide continuous optimisation.
While migrating to C8 promises numerous benefits, you will need a detailed plan for a seamless transition, including diving into differences between the versions’ concepts, reviewing your BPMN models, deciding on the best hosting option, and adjusting your source code. You may need the helping hand of a Camunda-certified partner to allow you to sail smoothly through all the technical challenges and arrive at next-gen process orchestration with less effort and better outcomes.
Contact Us
Please feel free to include any information about your business you think we should know (e.g., by how much you’d like to reduce your current data hosting expenses, or which cloud provider you’d prefer and why).