BRDP Business Rules - Latest and Greatest News

Business Rules Evangelist: In Praise of Procedure Business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics editorial from DMReview: "Business Rules Evangelist: In Praise of Procedure Column published in DMReview.com May 27, 2004 By Malcolm Chisholm A major goal of the business rules movement is to capture business rules in ways that express the business logic of the rules, rather than describing the mechanics used to execute them. As Chris Date has put it, business rules should be about 'what, not how.' A significant problem with this goal is that many IT professionals - perhaps the majority - tend to have mind-sets that think in terms of the 'how' of implementing business rules. This seems to be based primarily on the experiences of individuals as programmers, and a view that creating source code by hand is the only way to get things done in practice. Source code is, of course, procedural. That is to say it is a sequence of instructions that a computer will execute, e.g., 'first do A, then B, then C and if D is true then do E, otherwise do F.' While procedural source code seems natural to anyone involved in programming, it is very difficult to look at it and determine where one business rule begins and ends. In fact, quite a bit of most source code is concerned with doing things that have nothing to do with business logic, such as setting up an environment for a program to run in. Even if business rules can be discerned, it is difficult to understand what their business significance is, unless the source code is well documented (which is rare). Perhaps as a reaction to all of this there has been a general condemnation of things that are 'procedural' in the business rules movement. Yet, these are serious grounds to question whether 'procedure' really sh"

New DataDelta(TM) Tool Analyzes CDI Business Rule Butterfly-Effects(TM)Enhances Accuracy of Merge/Purge De-Duping and "Single Customer Views"

Washington, D.C. - DataDelta (www.DataDelta.com) launched a new, patent-pending tool today for analyzing Business Rule Butterfly-Effects - the key to effective Customer Data Integration (CDI) for building accurate "Single Customer Views".

.....Today's sophisticated CDI systems often have over 100,000 business rules in addition to a bewildering array of configuration parameters and processing options. "When users attempt to improve accuracy by adjusting these business rules, even small changes can cause amazingly complex and surprisingly widespread changes - what we call Business Rule Butterfly-Effects," Allburn continues. The concept of butterfly- effects is central to chaos theory and was popularized in a movie earlier this year. Allburn expands on this concept's application to CDI in his forthcoming book "The Art & Science of Customer Data Integration".

......DataDelta works like an auto shop's diagnostic computer that tunes- up car engines, but instead tunes-up complex CDI engines to maximize the match accuracy of merge/purge, de-duping, householding and single customer views. DataDelta does not compete with CDI vendors because it enhances, not replaces, their products as well as companies' own custom, in-house matching technology. Because it is vendor-neutral, DataDelta can also be used to scientifically evaluate competing vendors and service bureaus to see their previously hidden true strengths & weaknesses, including international Unicode & non-English data.

ILOG JRules Awarded ACORD XML Certification at Annual ACORD-LOMA Insurance Systems Conference
Industry Looks to ILOG BRMS to Streamline Underwriting and Claims Processing Activities; Manage Compliance
LAS VEGAS, May 25 -- ILOG(R) (Nasdaq: ILOG; Euronext: ILO; ISIN: FR0004042364), a leading provider of enterprise-class software components and services, today announced that ILOG JRules(TM), a key offering in ILOG's Business Rule Management System (BRMS) product line, has received the ACORD Certification Award for ACORD XML. ACORD, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, will award its certification to ILOG JRules for meeting ACORD's Property and Casualty (P&C)/XML standards. The certification will be announced at this year's annual ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, taking place May 23 - 25 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Equifax Introduces InterConnect(TM)Monday May 24, 2:02 pm ET
Next-Generation Decisioning Technology Automates Business Credit Processes


ATLANTA, May 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX - News) today introduced Equifax InterConnect, a component-based product suite that provides a range of functions to help businesses simplify and accelerate the credit and lending process.

......InterConnect Features
- Offers a unique hybrid ASP model to enable rapid implementation and faster speed to market while giving customers increased control of their business rules and easier incorporation of upgrades and enhancements.

- Provides advanced decisioning capabilities that incorporate risk and marketing models, fraud and identity verification tools and other data sources to accommodate simple to complex decisioning and strategy management.

- Features customer control of rules, allowing more focus on real-time profit potential and cross-sell opportunities.

- Rules Editor(TM), a tool for changing existing business rules and decision tables, enabling users to instantly roll approved changes into production.
- Adapts to meet the needs of various industries, including financial services, telecommunications, utilities, commercial services and others.

- Provides flexible configuration and scalable architecture, enabling customers to quickly implement customized solutions.

- Availability of unique optional components including:

- Rules Challenger(TM), a tool that allows users to test alternative strategies for scores, models and processes online using real-time transaction data. This enables trend tracking with actionable feedback on strategy performance over time.

- Hypothesis(TM), an intuitive tool for conducting "what if" analysis using scores, models and other scenarios against off-line, archived data. This enables the evaluation of new theories and strategies without disruption to the customer production environment.

Rules for Success A focus on business policies and rules rather than data is what leads to smarter systems, says Pegasystems' CEO.
Q&A by Tommy Peterson

MAY 24, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - In its 21-year history, Pegasystems Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., has evolved from an exception processing vendor to a major player in business process management (BPM) software, one of the liveliest corners of the strong business-intelligence market. Pegasystems founder and CEO Alan Trefler says the common thread through the company's development has been a focus on business rules and processes rather than the traditional IT concentration on data and how it's organized. Trefler discussed the need to make systems smarter and more able to make or support decisions with Computerworld's Tommy Peterson.

The Business Rules Community's
Business Rules Journal (BRJ) Update
May, 2004 Vol 5 No. 5
.......................
In this issue of your periodic Business Rules Journal Update...

1. The Notion of the Perfect Platform -- And What It Means for System
Models, by Ronald G. Ross
2. Premise & Conclusion: The Semantics Lexicon ~ Terms for the Business
Rules / Smart Process Revolution, by Ronald G. Ross 3. Foundation Matters: Why We Need Type Boolean), by C. J. Date 4. OMG Reporter: Initial OMG Business Rules Proposals Evolve. by
Stan Hendryx
5. "Oldies-but-Goodies" posting, by Ronald G. Ross


If you'd like to read all our articles on the web, visit:
http://www.brcommunity.com


1. The Notion of the Perfect Platform -- And What It Means for System
Models, by Ronald G. Ross
...............................................................
We still struggle to understand the precise differences between models of the business, models of the system (platform-independent designs), and models at the platform level (platform-dependent designs). Ron Ross re-examines this crucial issue, especially the differences between the latter two kinds of models, applying the next-generation notion of the 'perfect platform.'

to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2004/b195.html


2. Premise & Conclusion: The Semantics Lexicon ~ Terms for the Business
Rules / Smart Process Revolution, by Ronald G. Ross ...............................................................
The issue of semantics is becoming a key focal point in the industry – not just for business rules, but a much wider scope, including how to make business processes smarter. A wealth of new ideas is emerging.
These ideas are bound to have lasting effects on how businesses organize themselves to communicate more effectively, and to apply their core competencies to new business markets. In this forward-looking column, Ron Ross introduces you to core ideas -- and hot new buzzwords -- of applied semantics.

to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2004/b181.html


3. Foundation Matters: Why We Need Type Boolean), by C. J. Date ...............................................................
In his seminars and elsewhere, C. J. Date often gets asked to justify his very strong position that support for the data type BOOLEAN is essential in any decent, self-respecting DBMS. "I thought it was time to set the answer down in writing," he explains. In this month's column he does just that.

to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2004/b190.html
4. OMG Reporter: Initial OMG Business Rules Proposals Evolve. by
Stan Hendryx
...............................................................
In this month's column Stan Hendryx provides an update from the OMG's recent Anaheim meeting, sharing his perspective on the approaches taken by the three proposals for 'Business Semantics of Business Rules.' "Although there are significant differences in approach among the submissions," he writes, "the approaches seem to be complementary. This is encouraging."

to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2004/b193.html

5. "Oldies-but-Goodies" Collection
..................................................................
BRS is releasing hidden treasures from past print issues of the DataToKnowledge Newsletter (formerly Data Base Newsletter).
This month's posting to our "Oldies-but-Goodies"
collection is...

"The Newest Idea in Business Rules: Rules Normalize!"
by Ronald G. Ross
from the Mar./Apr. 1996 issue


to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a1996/a335.html

The Business Rules Journal (BRJ) Update is distributed electronically free-of-charge on a monthly basis by the Business Rules Community. www.BRCommunity.com

Gladys S. W. Lam, Publisher
Ronald G. Ross, Executive Editor
Keri Anderson Healy, Editor
John Hall, Technology Editor

BRCommunity.com is sponsored by Business Rule Solutions, LLC, the world leader in business rule techniques.

Copyright 2004. www.BRSolutions.com. All rights reserved.

IT-Director.com: Legacy Rescue And Trinity Millennium: "Legacy Rescue And Trinity Millennium
.......One very compelling capability that Trinity Millennium has is "rules harvesting". It can identify and extract the business rules that are buried in a system. According to Bill Cody, "a surprising number of companies simply do not know what a legacy system actually does." This capability has been amplified in importance by the advent of Web Services based "Business Process Management" tools. "

CSC: CSC ENHANCES HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE WITH PEGASYSTEMS� BUSINESS RULES ENGINE May 10, 2004: "CSC ENHANCES HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE WITH PEGASYSTEMS� BUSINESS RULES ENGINE

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 10, 2004 � Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) announced today an agreement to integrate Pegasystems Inc.�s (NASDAQ: PEGA) PegaRULES Process Commander (PRPC) software into CSC�s Web-enabled workflow system for health plans."

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Speed to Business: "Speed to Business
By David Stodder

Loosen the twist-tie, spin open the plastic bag, and out tumbles a most user-friendly invention: sliced bread. Could there be anything as great as this?
Increasingly, professionals in both business and IT communities today would answer 'yes' � perhaps even greater. The focus of their excitement is business process management (BPM), a gathering mass of technology and methods that could produce the next great productivity boom in the application of information technology
......... from the top down, organizations invested in workflow, business-rule engines, and ... Business rules management and analysis products from such vendors as Fair Isaac, Ilog, Mega International, Pegasystems, and RulesPower are also a key part of the BPM sector.
...
"

Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: The voice of the valley economy: "IQ8 Integration Studio Provides a Comprehensive Integration Environment for
Cost-Effectively Designing, Deploying and Managing Data Quality Solutions Across the Enterprise

.....IQ8 Integration Studio enables users to quickly build and reuse business
rules across the enterprise through an intuitive user interface and quick
start "best practice" Data Quality Blueprints(TM). ....... The IQ8 Repository: The Repository contains two major subcomponents:
configuration rules and runtime metadata. Configuration rules are items such
as transforms, compound transforms, and projects. These are configured to
explain the business rules needed for data quality processing. Runtime
metadata includes a variety of information about the different processes run
in IQ8.
"

Le Figaro: "Industrial Bank of Korea chooses ILOG BRMS to manage �Bankasurance' system business processes

SEOUL - May 11, 2004 - ILOG(R) (NASDAQ: ILOG; Euronext: ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364), a leading provider of enterprise-class software components and services, today announced that South Korea's premier financial institution, Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), has selected ILOG JRules (TM) a key offering in ILOG's Business Rule Management System (BRMS), to empower bank tellers, loan officers and other users to provide real-time product and service recommendations through the country's recently introduced “Bankasurance' System. Bankasurance, which was introduced via legislation to the South Korean financial market in 2003, allows traditional banks to recommend and cross-sell insurance products to consumers.
.........Using ILOG JRules, the new system enables non-technical customer service bank employees to query customers using a series of questions that are mapped to proprietary business rules. The system then in turn produces automatically
generated product and service recommendations. Furthermore, JRules reduces IT maintenance costs by providing business users with the ability to easily understand and edit business rules, alleviating the need to engage technical administrators.
"

Web Services Journal: "BPM's Benefits: Tactical As Well As Strategic
April 30, 2004
Summary
The benefits of BPM (business process management) reach from the mail room to the board room and beyond. BPM, with enhancements enabled by Web services, provides tactical benefits that significantly enhance application creation and extension, while delivering strategic benefits to companies that leverage BPM methodology and reinvent themselves as process-managed enterprises."

Web Services Journal: "Something Old & Something New
The key to Web services
April 30, 2004
Summary
As soon as new business applications roll out, someone is waiting to change them. Most application developers are resigned to this reality because they understand that business conditions change, and the applications that support key business processes have to change with them."

SD Times: News & Top Stories: "Data Analysis as the Deciding Factor
New Fair Isaac framework designed to help businesses make better decisions
By David Rubinstein

May 1, 2004 � Businesses need to automate their decisions to raise productivity, according to Fair Isaac Inc., which later this month will release updates to its Blaze Advisor rules engine and to Model Builder as part of an overall strategy it is calling Enterprise Decision Management (EDM)."

TDAN - Hay - Modeling Business Rules Part 2: "MODELING BUSINESS RULES:
WHAT DATA MODELS CANNOT DO
Written by David C. Hay - Essential Strategies, Inc.
Published in TDAN.com April 2004

A data model can show two and a half of the four kinds of business rules: terms, facts, and the result of derivations. It can show a limited number of the fourth kind: constraints. But fundamentally, it cannot show that a row must be or may not be updated under specific circumstances. A data model can, however, portray the data parameters that control business rules. Moreover, when the subject of a model is rules (as in a regulatory agency), there are very specific steps that can be taken to represent those rules in a data model. This article by David Hay is about the data in data-driven business rules.
"

TDAN - Hoberman - Business Rule Validation: "BUSINESS RULES VALIDATION
Written by Steve Hoberman
[Return to the Feature Articles]
Published in TDAN.com April 2004
Top 3 validations to correctly capturing business rules in your design

This article by Steve Hoberman discusses the three rule validations required to improve the accuracy of your model, and ended describing two activities that can help perform these validations. Although the work is challenging and time consuming to validate the rules, your reward is a stronger and more accurate design and greater knowledge for yourself as to how the business really works.

"