A business rules management system (BRMS) is a software tool that works alongside enterprise IT applications. It enables businesses to automate or streamline decision-making processes. Business rules represent those aspects of an enterprise such as policies, procedures or regulations that define or constrain some aspect of a business.

Ian Graham is an industry consultant with over 20 year’s experience. He is recognized internationally as an authority on business modelling, object-oriented software development methods and expert systems. He has a significant public presence, being associated with both UK and international professional organizations, and is frequently quoted in the IT and financial press.

Ian is well known as a public speaker and writer on advanced computing and has published over 60 articles and papers. His books, Object-Oriented Methods and Migrating to Object Technology are rated best sellers in their field.

Foreword.

Preface.

1 Aligning IT with Business.

1.1 Historical Background.

1.2 What are Business Rules?

1.3 What is Business Rules Management?

1.4 Why use a Business Rules Management System?

1.5 The Benefits.

1.6 Summary.

1.7 Bibliographical Notes.

2 Service Oriented Architecture and Software Components.

2.1 Service Oriented Architecture and Business Rules.

2.1.1 Business Drivers, Benefits and Pitfalls.

2.2 Service Implementation using Components.

2.3 Agents and Rules.

2.3.1 Agent Architecture.

2.3.2 Applications of Agents.

2.4 Service Oriented Architecture andWeb Services.

2.5 Adoption Strategies.

2.5.1 After SOA.

2.6 Summary.

2.7 Bibliographical Notes.

3 Approaches to Business Rules.

3.1 Database-centric Approaches.

3.2 GUIDE and the Business Rules Group.

3.3 Using UML and OCL to Express Rules.

3.4 Business Rules Management Systems and Expert Systems.

3.5 Other Developments.

3.6 Standards, Directions and Trends.

3.7 Summary.

3.8 Bibliographical Notes.

4 Business Rules Management Technology and Terminology.

4.1 Rules and Other Forms of Knowledge Representation.

4.1.1 Rules and Production Systems.

4.2 Knowledge and Inference.

4.2.1 Semantic Networks.

4.3 Inference in Business Rules Management Systems.

4.3.1 Forward, Backward and Mixed Chaining Strategies.

4.4 Data Mining and Rule Induction.

4.5 Techniques for Representing Rules.

4.5.1 Decision Trees and decision tables.

4.6 Uncertainty Management.

4.7 Ontology and Epistemology: the Rˆole of Object Modelling in.

Natural Language Processing.

4.8 Summary.

4.9 Bibliographical Notes.

5 Features of Business Rules Management Systems.

5.1 The Components and Technical Features of a BRMS.

5.1.1 Rules.

5.1.2 Rule Templates.

5.1.3 Rule Syntax Checking.

5.1.4 Procedures and Algorithms.

5.1.5 Ruleflows.

5.1.6 Decision Tables and Decision Trees.

5.1.7 Inference.

5.1.8 Uncertainty and Explanation.

5.2 BRMS Products.

5.2.1 Blaze Advisor.

5.2.2 HaleyRules and HaleyAuthority.

5.2.3 JRules.

5.2.4 PegaRULES and Versata.

5.3 A Simple Application.

5.3.1 The Application in Blaze Advisor.

5.3.2 The Application in HaleyAuthority.

5.3.3 The Application in JRules.

5.4 Usability Issues.

5.5 Summary.

5.6 Bibliographical Notes.

6 Development Methods.

6.1 Knowledge Acquisition and Analysis.

6.2 System Development.

6.3 Halle’s Guidelines.

6.4 Rule Style Guidance.

6.5 Summary.

6.6 Bibliographical Notes.

7 A Pattern Language for BRMS Development.

7.1 What are Patterns?

7.2 Why a Pattern Language?

7.3 The RulePatterns Language – Part I.

7.3.1 Patterns for Requirements, Process and Architecture.

7.3.2 Patterns for Finding, Writing and Organizing Business Rules.

7.4 The RulePatterns Language – Part II.

7.4.1 Patterns for Knowledge Elicitation.

7.4.2 Patterns for Product Selection and Application Development.

7.5 Related Patterns and Pattern Languages.

7.5.1 Arsanjani’s Rule Object Patterns.

7.5.2 KADS Patterns.

7.5.3 Organizational Patterns.

APPENDICES.

A The Business Rules Manifesto.

B A Simple Method for Evaluating BRMS Products.

References and Bibliography.

Index.

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