Co-authored by Markus Reichart
Since version 21, IBM Business Automation Workflow (BAW) has supported containerized runtime environments, enabling scalable, cloud-native deployments. With the release of IBM BAW 25.0.0.0, IBM takes a major leap forward by extending container support to the authoring environment—completing the containerization for the entire workflow lifecycle on the certified Kubernetes platforms OpenShift Container Platform (OCP), Rancher and Tanzu.
The enhanced container support also introduces powerful new workflow features made possible by the alignment and reuse of the BAW component across IBM BAW and IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA).
Authoring meets containers
The entire workflow lifecycle—from design and development to deployment and execution—can now run on the certified Kubernetes platforms OCP, Rancher, and Tanzu.
For design and development, you can now use Workflow Designer in Business Automation Studio (BA Studio) in the same containerized ecosystem as your runtime environments.
Automation versions created in BA Studio can now be deployed to the containerized runtime—either online or offline—for execution. This streamlines the transition from design to deployment within the same containerized ecosystem.
Powerful new workflow features from authoring through runtime
This release goes beyond expanding container support to authoring—it also represents a strategic alignment of capabilities. Now, all containerized Business Automation Workflow (BAW) deployments — whether in IBM BAW or IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA) — offer a unified feature set.
Previously exclusive features from the BAW component within CP4BA are now also available in IBM Business Automation Workflow on containers. This ensures consistency and parity across deployment environments.
At the core is a shared architecture: both IBM BAW and IBM CP4BA now leverage the IBM Cloud Pak foundational services (CPfS) as the underlying platform for containerized BAW.
With this alignment, a wide range of powerful new capabilities are now available across the entire workflow lifecycle, including:
- Workflow Automation Services – reusable, modular services that simplify automation design.
- Event-driven integration – expose Kafka message-event-based services directly from workflow automations.
- Messaging support – expose IBM MQ message-based services from workflow automations.
- Transactional service flows – enabling atomic, rollback-capable service orchestration.
- Asynchronous operations – expose service flows and processes as asynchronous REST services from workflow automations
- Secure REST integrations – support for OAuth client credential flow for external REST service invocations from workflow, and APIKey authentication in REST services exposed by workflow automations.
- OpenAPI v3.0 enhancements – support for objects without properties, improving schema flexibility.
- Business object Import – import business objects directly into Workflow Designer for faster modeling.
- Built-in PostgreSQL (EDB) – integrated database support for simplified deployment and management.
These capabilities empower developers and architects to build more scalable, event-driven, and secure automation solutions—aligned with modern cloud-native practices.
Summary
With BAW 25.0.0.0, IBM delivers a cloud-native, fully containerized automation platform that supports the complete lifecycle—from authoring to execution—on the Kubernetes platforms OCP, Rancher, and Tanzu. This marks a significant step toward modern and scalable workflow automation.
In addition to full containerization, version 25.0.0.0 introduces enhanced workflow capabilities through the unified BAW component architecture shared with IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA).
References
For more information, please refer to the IBM Business Automation Workflow documentation.