Ilog has adapted its JRules business rules management software to
enable it to keep pace with the rapid speed at which businesses
processes change, writes Eric Doyle.
Version 4.0 of JRules was announced last Monday. Pierre Heran,
Ilog's chief executive, said, "With version 3 we put the writing of
rules into the end-user's hands by giving them a rule language
generator to help them devise their own standard method of writing
the rules. Now we are adding a repository to allow companies to
bring together all of the rules so that they can be centrally
managed and controlled."
Business rules encapsulate the logic that drives a business
process. Put simply, a business rule takes the form of an if/then
statement that would normally be part of a program. For example, if
the Web site customer's shopping cart contains goods worth more
than £100, then credit them with £5 off their next purchase.
If this was embedded in a program, it would have to be referred
back to the development team every time the discount changed. By
separating such rules from an application, changes can be made by
the user as the processes evolve.
The addition of the rules repository means changes can be managed
and tracked, allowing audit trails to be retraced and the rules
that applied at any given time in the history of an application
viewed. Ilog has also incorporated the ability to develop rules for
detecting time-oriented patterns within flows of events.