BRDP Business Rules - Latest and Greatest News

Info sharing stumbles on poor planning: "



03/30/05

Info sharing stumbles on poor planning

By Alice Lipowicz
Staff Writer

A lack of clear strategies and concepts of operation is one of the major barriers holding up progress in information-sharing within homeland security, Martin Smith, director of information sharing for the Homeland Security Department�s Office of the Chief Information Officer, writes in a new report.

Smith�s commentary, titled, �Ten Barriers to Information Sharing,� is included in a two-part report on information-sharing, from government and justice perspectives, published March 29 by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. The report is available at www.nascio.org.

Basic lack of definition and clarity on many levels is a strong hindrance to advancing information sharing, Smith said, who describes at least 10 obstacles that must be overcome. "

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In addition, there is difficulty in ascertaining “‘real’ business rules,” or rules established by law or established business reasons, versus common practice, or “tribal knowledge,” in a workplace. Documenting the necessary business rules is a huge task and is hampering the ability to quickly establish new rules that meet the requirements, Smith wrote.
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The report said Smith’s opinions are his own and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the homeland security department.

Gensym Releases Fourth-Quarter and Year-End Results; Continued Growth and Profitability: "March 28, 2005 09:52 AM US Eastern Timezone

Gensym Releases Fourth-Quarter and Year-End Results; Continued Growth and Profitability

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2005--Gensym Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: GNSM), a leading provider of rule engine software for mission-critical solutions"

PRESS RELEASE TCG and MindBox Form Strategic Partnership: "TCG and MindBox Form Strategic Partnership
Delivering Rules Management and Decision Support to Government
WASHINGTON, DC and GREENBRAE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 03/28/2005 -- TCG and MindBox�, LLC announced today that they have formed a strategic partnership to deliver industry-leading decision support and rules-based reasoning tools to the government using TCG's GSA Schedule contract vehicle. TCG is a leading provider of IT and management consulting solutions to the Federal government and MindBox is the premier provider of advanced rule- and case-based reasoning technology to government agencies.
The use of decision support and artificial intelligence software can significantly accelerate information processing in many government systems, including grants management, bio-informatics, financial management, scientific research, and information management. MindBox's component-based architecture contains: "
-- ARTEnterprise™: A foundation development environment for building
intelligent applications.
-- Engine Service Provider (ESP): Core functionality that provides an
architectural framework for scalability, as well as efficient and effective
operations.
-- ARTOptimize™, ARTQualify™, ARTPrice™: Component software, based on
ARTEnterprise, that provides additional infrastructure for automating
eligibility, configuration, and packaging activities. For Federal grants
management, TCG will focus on using ARTQualify for grant eligibility
decisioning.
-- MindBox Power Editor: A business-friendly rules management environment
that provides business users the ability to add, change and retire rules
and guidelines.

The MindBox product architecture separates the business rules from the system code. Using the MindBox Power Editor, business users can make changes as necessary with minimal technical knowledge -- decreasing the cost of IT maintenance, speeding the implementation of legislative and policy changes, and putting responsibility for those changes into the hands of the most-qualified staff.
Extensive surveys of the available COTS artificial intelligence tools have shown that MindBox is a leader in the intelligent decisioning marketplace. The product is a hybrid application, combining rule- and case-based approaches to reasoning that provide flexibility in deployment and reduce overall impact of the system to the culture, methods and existing processes of users.

"As the IT industry automates more and more business functions and processes, applying rules and policies to manage these systems becomes paramount," said Rich Barfus, President and CEO of MindBox, LLC. "TCG is leveraging our long history as a pioneer in rules technology, plus our unique abilities to apply case-based reasoning and to edit rules using a true business user interface, to deliver their decision-support products to government entities."

"The government processes massive amounts of information according to incredibly complicated policies and rules," said David G. Cassidy, Vice President at TCG. "Through our agreement with MindBox, TCG will deliver cutting-edge tools that help manage and overcome this growing need, and give other integrators GSA Schedule access to the industry's best rules- and case-based reasoning software."

WebWire Ellie Mae and MindBox Form Strategic Alliance: "Ellie Mae and MindBox Form Strategic Alliance
MindBox, LLC
3/28/2005 11:01:27 AM
Companies to Integrate ePASS Network Into MindBox Products
DUBLIN, CA -- 03/28/2005 -- Ellie Mae� Inc., an award-winning provider of innovative software and services for the mortgage industry, announced a strategic alliance with MindBox�, LLC, the leading provider of sophisticated decisioning systems and award-winning rules engine and case-based reasoning software, to integrate Ellie Mae�s ePASS� network into all MindBox products.

According to the terms of the alliance, Ellie Mae will allow the users of MindBox�s suite of mortgage lending technology products to have direct access to the over 100,000 service providers that are available through Ellie Mae�s ePASS Network. MindBox will leverage Ellie Mae�s Web services connectors through the ePASS Gateway to let customers do online business transactions with every service category and virtually every service provider in the mortgage lending industry, while at the same time protect their clients� confidential information against the threat of identify theft through Ellie Mae�s safe and secure ePASS technology.

'The mortgage loan origination process requires information from various third party providers such as credit reporting agencies,' said Rich Barfus, President and CEO of MindBox. 'Our integration with Ellie Mae�s ePass network allows us to provide a fast efficient method of providing automated access to a very large number of these information providers. The MindBox systems will access this data to perform automated credit analysis, debt consolidation and deal structuring. MindBox is well known for the successful automation of these business functions.'

"This partnership is a continuation of Ellie Mae’s vision of enabling the mortgage industry with the fastest and most efficient technology tools available," said Richard Roof, Senior Vice President of Ellie Mae. "With MindBox, we are able to bring together two award-winning, innovative technologies that complement each other, while continuing to drive friction out of the mortgage origination process. Utilizing our ePASS Gateway, MindBox is able to deploy ePASS connectivity to their clients right from within their applications, empowering their users with not only a better tool for communication, but also a more secure and compliant manner of transferring their borrowers’ confidential information," added Roof.

Fair Isaac Cited Among Most Influential Technology Companies for Delivering Agility and Smarter Business Processes: "Fair Isaac Cited Among Most Influential Technology Companies for Delivering Agility and Smarter Business Processes

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2005--
Company Earns Intelligent Enterprise 2005 Editors' Choice Award

Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC), the leading provider of analytics and decision technology, has been recognized by CMP LLC Intelligent Enterprise magazine as one the 12 most influential technology companies of 2005. Fair Isaac was acknowledged as the leader within the Vanguard category, which recognizes companies that are helping businesses push the envelope in leveraging information for greater agility and smarter business processes.
The Intelligent Enterprise Editors' Choice Awards recognize companies providing the strongest vision, market leadership and technology innovation to its readers in their quest to align IT with business objectives. "

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Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor gives business users and analysts a powerful tool to update business strategies and ensure governance across critical enterprise information systems, using straightforward business terms. The control of the business logic embedded in IT systems allows business users to maintain application behavior without IT assistance, using intuitive rules maintenance applications. This increases business agility, allowing rules to be modified quickly and easily, and requiring IT to simply link and test the final applications. Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor is the first leading rules engine to support Java, .NET and COBOL deployment of the same rules. The multi-platform solution supports Web Services, Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platforms, Microsoft .NET and Component Object Model (COM), and COBOL for IBM mainframes.
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Astera Software Introduces Intelligent Platform for Optimizing Loan Pooling and Best Execution Analysis: "Astera Software Introduces Intelligent Platform for Optimizing Loan Pooling and Best Execution Analysis

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--
Astera Secondary Manager is Flexible Yet Powerful Business Rules-Based Software Platform That Will Significantly Improve Earnings, Save Time and Enhance Productivity

Astera Software, a provider of mission-critical applications to the mortgage industry, today announced the availability of Astera Secondary Manager Version 2.0, a business rules-based platform that introduces advanced technology into the loan pooling and best execution process.
Developed in close collaboration with leading secondary market executives, Astera Secondary Manager optimizes loan pooling and best execution analysis, and can be configured on-the-fly to adjust for changing market conditions, investor constraints and organizational priorities. The ability to optimize multiple loan pools simultaneously lets lenders quickly determine the best outlet for each loan, while maximizing the value of the remaining loan inventory.
Astera Secondary Manager provides a flexible best execution engine that is tightly integrated with loan pool optimization to allow for all-in execution analytics at loan level, attribute level and global level. By allowing the user to define and customize calculations, decision models, eligibility rules and multi-variable constraints, Astera Secondary Manager is able to consistently improve execution values for loan portfolios of any size or complexity.
'Our customers have seen Astera Secondary Manager cut the time for loan pooling, allocation and best execution analysis from days "

Future Astera Secondary Manager modules will apply business-rules based technology to delivery, warehouse and pipeline management. Astera Secondary Manager is available for order now.

[March 22, 2005]
Asia's First Business Rule Management System Centre Of Excellence Opens in Singapore
SINGAPORE, March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and ILOG(R) (Nasdaq: ILOG; Euronext: ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364) today announced their collaboration to further help businesses leverage information technology (IT) to implement and make business policy changes more quickly and cost-effectively. The new Centre will help more than 15 local companies develop BRMS pilot projects in key verticals such as financial services, healthcare, logistics and telecommunications. The Centre will also train 250 IT professionals to develop BRMS solutions. The Centre was launched today by Mr. Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive Officer of the IDA and Mr. Pierre Haren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ILOG.


The BRMS CoE will support local Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and System Integrators (SI) in developing BRMS-based solutions for both local and overseas markets. The BRMS CoE will be equipped with the infrastructure and technical expertise for conducting IDA-certified training programs.The first pilot project resulting from the collaboration will be developed by a Singapore solution provider, e-TREK and deployed at Alexandra Hospital in Singapore. The project will use a BRMS and Web services in the development of a seamless straight-through-processing solution that will facilitate insurance claims processing, linking insurance companies and healthcare service providers. Since the business rules can be updated rapidly, insurance claims can be processed faster, bringing greater convenience to patients.Speaking at the launch of the BRMS CoE, Mr. Chan Yeng Kit, Chief Executive Officer of the IDA said, "In today's competitive business environment, time is money and having a quick turnaround of business policy changes is vital. The adoption and development of technological products and solutions among businesses can be the differentiating factor between winners and losers in the market. We therefore encourage local companies to embrace BRMS solutions to gain a winning edge over competitors. Similarly, it is important for local companies to develop and build capabilities in innovative BRMS solutions that can be available for export to the regional and international markets, and tap into this growing market worth predicted to be worth US$279 million by 2008.""ILOG's presence in Singapore and our partnership with the IDA dates back to 1998. Today, I'm pleased that our important relationship has reached another milestone," said Mr. Pierre Haren, CEO, ILOG Inc. "Singapore is an established, trusted business hub with excellent infrastructure, and the generalization of BRMS in Singapore will further reinforce the country's position as a centre of finance and business. The IDA's promotion of BRMS solutions helps underscore Singapore's competitive position as a technology leader and innovator."A BRMS is a software platform that empowers business users to manage and execute business policies, which are expressed as business rules. In current practice, these business rules are buried in application program code or embedded in databases, requiring a lengthy and labor-intensive process to change. The adoption of BRMS solutions is gaining worldwide recognition because they allow business rules to be expressed in the language of the business, rather than a programming language, and be managed by business users in an organization. The benefit is faster business response times to regulations, customer needs and competitive threats. Business users can implement business rule and policy changes, in real time without taking a system offline. The collaboration between IDA and ILOG is expected to help organizations gain a competitive edge and facilitate faster time-to-market.About Infocomm Development Authority of SingaporeThe Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is committed to growing Singapore into a dynamic global infocomm hub. IDA uses an integrated approach to developing info-communications in Singapore. This involves nurturing a competitive telecoms market as well as a conducive business environment with programmes and schemes for both local and international companies. For more news and information, visit http://www.idanews.gov.sg/

Dear Business Rules Practitioner,

We are pleased to inform you that the new OpenRules Release 2.0.0 is now available for free download. OpenRules-2 goes beyond a pure Business Rules Management System. It extends OpenRules to a scale of a framework for development and maintenance of Rules-based Web Applications.

Here is a brief overview of OpenRules-2 enhancements:

· Web Forms Management: enables non-technical users to create web forms using simple Excel tables which specify form layouts in a WYSIWYG manner. This release also provides a methodology and numerous examples of how to define complex interaction logic. A simple library that supports rules-based interaction processes is also provided.

· Web Deployment Mechanism: enables developers to expose basic rule projects as Web Services. Provides a push-button deployment mechanism for presentation-oriented Web Applications with rules and forms defined in Excel.

· Documentation. Release 2.0.0 comes with a rich set of user tutorials available online from http://openrules.com/documentation.htm. The entire documentation set can be downloaded from http://openrules.com.

· Case Study. Release 2.0.0 extends the Clinical Guidelines use case to demonstrate how business and IT specialists can work together in developing complex Rules-based Web Application (see http://openrules.com/docs/ClinicalGuidelines.htm ).

As always, OpenRules, Inc. backs all provided Open Source tools with commercial Technical Support. Download OpenRules-2 today from here.

We are looking forward to your comments and suggestions,


OpenRules Development Team
http://www.openrules.com

BPEL to the Rescue: A Real-World Account
The backstory of a flexible and agile application
March 18, 2005
SummaryAfter spending much of last year learning to use the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to orchestrate Web Services and realize the benefits of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), we felt it was time for us to climb down off the bleeding edge of the razor and share our story about the real-world realities of implementing a BPEL-based project.

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The rule engine functionality is exposed to BPEL as a Web Service wrapper and the Session EJB is exposed using the Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF). To the workflow designer, both the rules engine and the correspondence EJB appear as Web Services and are accessed using the BPEL "partnerlink" construct.
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Why has Tibco bought ObjectStar?
Thursday 17th March 2005
Written By: Peter Abrahams
Copyright © 2005 Bloor Research
Tibco, following on from its acquisition and integration of Staffware, has recently bought ObjectStar. ObjectStar has been around for 20 years and has passed from Amdahl to Fujitsu to independence and now to Tibco. Throughout that period, its sound R+D has enabled it to provide a set of products which are used by an impressive list of customers to run high volume, mission critical solutions.

Its heritage is mainframe application integration. It provides access to all of the main, and some of the more obscure, databases and transactional systems such as Adabas, DB2, CICS, CA-IDMS and M204. However, in the last few years, it has extended its scope to include other platforms such as Linux and Windows, improved its business rules engine and developed an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It is really more than just an EAI as it is capable of developing applications to the near, if not complete, exclusion of Java or COBOL code.

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CSC AND INSURANCE TECHNOLOGIES CREATE STRAIGHT-THROUGH PROCESSING PLATFORM FOR LIFE INSURANCE AND ANNUITIES
Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) today introduced a straight-through processing platform for life insurance and annuities that reduces the time to issue insurance policies and increases producer productivity. The new platform, which CSC created through an alliance with Insurance Technologies, a leading provider of illustration software, combines CSC’s nbAccelerator new business process management and risk assessment software with Insurance Technologies’ ForeSight Enterprise point-of-sale and illustration software.
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The new platform uses ACORD XML industry standards, enabling seamless communication throughout the enterprise. It also incorporates CSC’s VP/MS common calculation and rules engine, which gives producers consistent values to apply across the policy lifecycle, including needs analysis, asset allocation, advanced sales concepts, product calculations, forms generation, application submission, hypotheticals, illustrations, in-force transactions and reprojections.
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LifeCell Implements ClearOrbit to Automate Process to Meet Rigorous FDA Label Tracking Requirements
ClearOrbit3/16/2005 10:36:28 AM
AUSTIN, Texas -- March 16, 2005 -- Gemini Simplified Interface Software Automates Complex Workflow and Labeling for Processing, Shipping, and Tracking Acellular Tissue Grafts.
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Compliance Label Manager provides a sophisticated rules engine to facilitate adherence to FDA product labeling requirements (LifeCell manages over 130 unique label formats).
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Six Additional Life Insurers Select NaviSys Enterprise Platform, Bringing Total to 26
EDISON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2005--

Carrier Desire for True Straight-Through Processing Drives Demand for NaviSys' Web-Services Platform

NaviSys, Inc., the market leader in front-to back-office solutions for life insurers, today announced that six additional insurers have licensed components of the NaviSys Enterprise Platform(TM), along with NaviSys' consulting and implementation services, over the past six months. This brings to 26 the total number of customers who have chosen NaviSys' web-based platform.
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Driven by integrated workflow, a common product calculation engine and business rules engine, NaviSys Enterprise Platform allows life insurers to use a single web-based system to support the full policy life cycle using the following components: illustration, application, case management, underwriting, policy issue, customer service, policy administration and payout administration.
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Business Process Management: Taking All The Right Steps
BearingPoint, Inc.
By Greg Sarafin
Managing Director

Once again the software industry has created a solution — business process management (BPM) systems — that are positioned to solve many business problems, from capital spending to hiring, across any industry, from defense to retail. BPM can enable cross-functional workflow processes across organizational and geographic boundaries. It can span operating systems and platforms, databases, even network domains, and can include external users such as suppliers and customers.
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The Promise of BPM
BPM solutions automate and manage human interaction with technology systems and business rules, allowing an organization to control complex business integration requirements. With user-friendly graphical tools, the ability to generate specific applications, a standardized framework and compatibility with existing technologies, BPM places rapid development of powerful management tools in hand.
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Using Agile Software Development, part two
Brian Swan, Builder UK 15 March 2005

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Simple design
Agile advocates simple evolutionary design, rather than big up-front design. The objective is to design only the parts of the project we know about and no more, then allow that design to evolve over time, which helps increase flexibility and minimise the cost of change.

Taking an example from 3Q Solutions, the customer required a rules engine. Traditionally the team would have begun work on the rules engine that would have taken months to produce and still potentially not get sold. Working with the customer, the team decided to design the simplest system that could possibly work for the rules engine and build a thin vertical slice of it with one rule. This gave the customer what he really needed -- a demonstrable rule -- and ensured that the investment was offset against the time committed. The team was then able to evolve the design from the initial build while maintaining flexibility. Simple Design is a complex area, and the best way to begin to look at this is to get external help.
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Amadeus Selects ILOG JRules to Streamline Leisure Travel Booking Process
Wednesday March 9, 3:00 am ET
- New BRMS-Based System Improves Customer Service at 1300 Travel Agencies Throughout Germany

HANNOVER, Germany, CeBIT, March 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ILOG® (Nasdaq: ILOG; Euronext: ILO; ISIN: FR0004042364) today announced that Amadeus®, the travel industry technology provider and leading Global Distribution System (GDS), has selected ILOG JRules(TM), a key offering in ILOG's Business Rule Management System (BRMS) product line, to determine in real-time tour availability in Amadeus' new search and compare solution, Amadeus Destino. ILOG JRules is used to create a simplified and unified interface for 1,300 travel agencies in Germany, providing them with real-time availability information from up to 65 Germany- and Austria-based tour operators. This shortens customer response times, moves inventory faster and improves customer retention.

Amadeus Destino provides travel agents with everything they need to sell a holiday package from a single platform. Travel agents can input the traveler's requirements and search for all offers from all operators, check availability and give the traveler information about their destination. The booking details are then imported directly to the Amadeus booking system, saving time for the travel agent and their customer. Amadeus Destino optimizes the sales process for tourism products and helps travel agents maximize their commission. Amadeus Destino delivers all the information and tools a travel agent needs to make a fast and profitable booking.
In the highly competitive travel market, the recommendation process is a strategic, but complex part of the sales process. Since many travel agencies are competing with online travel booking services, the process needs to be very fast, reliable and effective to ensure they can be competitive while offering the high level of customer service that differentiates them from on-line offerings. Prior to the JRules-based Amadeus Destino, tour availability checks were performed manually, significantly slowing response times. Travel agents had to not only learn the specific code displays corresponding to offerings from each tour operators' catalogs, they also had to keep up with them as they were frequently updated.

The ILOG JRules-based Amadeus Destino is marketed as an ASP (application service provider) solution. It allows all tour offerings, and the unique policies of each operator, to be consolidated, with the availability checks performed automatically by the system. Agents get accurate, real-time availability information, allowing them to respond quickly and freeing them to focus on customer service -- the travel agency's sustainable competitive advantage compared with online booking. In addition, the automation enabled by ILOG JRules reduces the number of mistakes inherent in the manual process, resulting in higher reliability for the customer and lower cost for the agency.
In addition to enabling travel agencies to be more competitive, ILOG JRules enables faster maintenance of the ASP-based Amadeus Destino offering. Amadeus can now deploy new policies in a week compared with three months. This is because rules are stored and modified only in the centralized rule repository versus in multiple locations required by the previous system. Furthermore, since business rules are now written in the intuitive language of the business user, both business and IT users understand what policies are in place and what modifications are necessary when introducing a new policy.
"We first considered the option of hard-coding the rules in the system but we realized this would create a very costly and hard to maintain solution," said Wolfgang Klein, Director Business Unit Development, Amadeus Germany. "ILOG JRules provides greatest flexibility to our system, while significantly alleviating the maintenance costs and efforts of a system subject to frequent changes."
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YASU Technologies Announces Partnership With Versata
YASU Technologies, a provider of innovative cross-platform BRM solutions for Java and .NET technologies, announced today that it has entered into an OEM partnership with Versata, Inc., a provider of software and services that automate the development and ongoing management of data-intensive applications.
(PRWEB) March 8, 2005 -- YASU Technologies, a provider of innovative cross-platform Business Rules Management (BRM) solutions for Java and .NET technologies, announced today that it has entered into an OEM partnership with Versata, Inc. , a provider of software and services that automate the development and ongoing management of data-intensive applications. This new agreement will enable Versata to embed YASU Technologies’ product, QuickRules Business Rules Engine, as part of the Versata platform.

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ILOG Launches First Comprehensive Graphics Toolkit for Eclipse
Source : La Société Actualité du 08/03/05 à 12:10

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and PARIS – March 08, 2005 – ILOG® (NASDAQ: ILOG; Euronext: ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364), a leading provider of enterprise-class software components and services, today announced the first commercial Java graphics toolkit to support the widely adopted Eclipse Platform – the ILOG JViews™ 6.5 family of products. The Eclipse Platform is an open extensible integrated development environment (IDE) that provides building blocks and a foundation for constructing and using integrated software-development tools. With the release of ILOG JViews 6.5, ILOG underscores its ongoing commitment to important standards bringing feature-rich displays to an even broader base of developers’ worldwide.

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The Business Rules Community's
Business Rules Journal (BRJ) Update
March, 2005 Vol 6 No. 3


In this issue of your periodic Business Rules Journal Update...
1. Business Rule Reuse in the Real World, by David Christiansen
2. Premise & Conclusion: Can You Violate Structural Rules?
(Part 2) ~ The Difference Between How to Compute and How to Behave,
by Ronald G. Ross
3. Rule Observatory: End-user Programming, by Silvie Spreeuwenberg
4. OMG Reporter: A User's Perspective of the OMG Business Rules
Proposal, 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. Business Rule Reuse in the Real World, by David Christiansen ...............................................................
What is 'Rule Reuse'? Rule reuse may not be what you think it is.
In this month's feature, David Christiansen draws on examples from insurance to demonstrate how this kind of reuse can contribute to business agility.
to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2005/b225.html

2. Premise & Conclusion: Can You Violate Structural Rules? (Part 2) ~
The Difference Between How to Compute and How to Behave,
by Ronald G. Ross
...............................................................
Part 1 of this three-part series examined the difference between operative rules and structural rules, the latter of which includes inference rules. An important distinction is that operative rules can be violated, whereas structural rules cannot, at least not directly. What about rules for mathematical computation -- structural or operative? In this month's column (second of a three-part series), Ron Ross examines that question, and reveals some important additional insights about the appropriate granularity of rules.
to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2005/b222.html

3. Rule Observatory: End-user Programming, by Silvie Spreeuwenberg ...............................................................
The idea of having 'end-users' -- people with no background in software testing or development -- directly manipulate software
that is critical for a company frightens many software professionals.
Some contend that end-user programming is a threat for mission-critical systems from the perspective of both correctness and security. In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory' Silvie Spreeuwenberg shares with you her observations on end-user programming.
to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2005/b227.html

4. OMG Reporter: OMG Reporter: A User's Perspective of the OMG Business
Rules Proposal, by Stan Hendryx
...............................................................
The proposed OMG 'Semantics of Business Rules and Vocabulary' (SBVR) specification was granted a new revised submission date of March 21, 2005, at the recent OMG Technical Meeting in Burlingame, California, and is picking up supporters and users. Even before its adoption, SBVR is gathering interested users. The diversity of applications already committed to SBVR or the serious evaluations of it reveal the general utility of SBVR. What is it about SBVR that is attracting this broad range of interest? In this month's column, our OMG Reporter, Stan Hendryx, outlines some of the capabilities that are important to users.
to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2005/b228.html

5. "Oldies-but-Goodies" Collection
..................................................................
BRS is releasing hidden treasures from past print issues of the Data Base Newsletter and DataToKnowledge Newsletter. This month's contribution to our "Oldies-but-Goodies" collection is...
"What Knowledge Management is About (And What it Has To Do With Business Rules)" by Ronald G. Ross from the Sep./Oct. 1998 issue
to read more, visit:
http://www.BRCommunity.com/a1998/a395.html


Copyright 2005. www.BRSolutions.com. All rights reserved.

Summary
On Monday CA will be announcing the availability of its Legacy Renewal Solution, a knowledge-based service that automates the conversion of legacy COBOL applications to J2EE, .NET and Web services without rewriting source code.


......CA's Legacy Renewal Solution, says the company, combines the expertise of CA Technology Services with the power of CA's AllFusion Gen model-based development tool "to help organizations migrate COBOL-based legacy applications to new platforms and application architectures, while maintaining their business rules and requirements."

......CA's Legacy Renewal Solution captures code-based business rules and stores them separately from any specific implementation technology. It automatically extracts the rules and data into CA's AllFusion Gen, which generates 100 percent of the new code from diagrams that mirror the customer's business requirements. Converted business rules can be easily augmented and enhanced to support an organization's current business practices.

Intelligence In The Here And Now

To deliver a decisive competitive advantage with CRM, use analytics to predict present -- and future -- customer behavior

By David Stodder

It's the moment of truth: Your customer is about to complete a transaction. Will this be the beginning, middle or end of a beautiful customer relationship? Does this transaction — and this customer — fit your organization's strategic vision of how it will prosper in the marketplace?

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Therefore, customer data analysis must keep pace with the new marketing machine. Some organizations are using business rules to develop customer intelligence and express that knowledge in a way that process management understands. Faced with a daunting number of account holders and records on file, for example, a large financial services company might use customer data to inform business rules management software, such as Fair Isaac's Blaze Advisor, Ilog's JRules or Pegasystems' PegaRules. The rules engine would manage the automated logic behind the modification of marketing and sales strategies. Without rules and process automation, it could be hugely labor intensive to repeatedly query the data through BI tools to decide on the most profitable business strategy. Along with time and cost savings, the rules would express in process logic the metrics defined by the company to achieve business performance goals. In this way, the business rules help align business goals with the overall execution of CRM strategy.

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Data Modeling Essentials Book Review

Article published in DM Review Magazine March 2005 Issue By Steve Hoberman

......Chapter 14, "Modeling Business Rules," provides an in-depth discussion on business rules including the two main categories that rules fall into (data and process). I found the paragraph in Section 14.2.3 so useful that I read it twice. This was the clearest and most succinct summary I have read to date as to which rules are relevant to the data modeler.

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Blaze Advisor Drives Modernizing Legacy Systems at the California Department of Motor Vehicles

Product Review published in DM Review Magazine March 2005 Issue By Jerrianne Seitz

Review of: Blaze Advisor from Fair, Isaac

REVIEWER: Jerrianne Seitz, data processing manager for State of California Department of Motor Vehicles, Vehicle Registration.

BACKGROUND: The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is responsible for collecting approximately $4.1 billion annually in vehicle registration fees. Centralized computer systems in Sacramento communicate with field offices throughout the state to handle the task of calculating registration fees for the nation's largest population of vessels and vehicles. Most of the computer programs composing the DMV legacy fee systems have been used for more than three decades with workarounds grafted into the code over the years. Even minor changes required extensive analysis and programming efforts by the legacy system's development staff to make changes to two separate systems.

PLATFORMS: DMV vehicle registration fee systems are deployed across two different systems. The DMV automated fee system is deployed on RS/6000 AIX computers at each of the DMV's 167 field offices and Sacramento headquarters. It processes customer initiated vehicle registration transactions in real time in IBM's proprietary Event Driven Language (EDL). The DMV batch fee systems are deployed on Z/OS mainframe computers at the Teale Data Center, where the renewal notices are generated, and the remittance processing system handles most of the "DMV by mail" processing in COBOL. The DMV's vehicle registration team reengineered a vehicle registration fee system that could work in conjunction with both systems in a manner that would be transparent to the end user. The revised solution resulted in a Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor business rules engine, IBM WebSphere application server, and a J2EE solution operating on a mainframe computer using a Z/OS operating system.

PROBLEM SOLVED: Fee calculation rules get changed often. Centralizing a rules server built with Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor business rules technology successfully provides the nontechnical analysts who are responsible for overseeing legislative compliance the ability to ensure proper implementation of the policy rules across the DMV vehicle registration fee systems.

PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY: The intuitive user interface gives nontechnical analysts a powerful tool to control and test rules across critical enterprise information systems without needing to learn obscure programming syntax. This enables increased business agility, allowing rules to be modified quickly and easily.

STRENGTHS: Blaze Advisor's ability to scale massive numbers of transactions on a variety of computer systems was a powerful component in our selection process. Additionally, Blaze Advisor's interoperability with the DMV's existing systems eliminated the rewriting of the vast majority of code within the legacy applications and systems. Throughout the DMV there was an overwhelming feeling that the business policies were so complex that no third-party software package would be able to handle the task, but Blaze Advisor not only met, but surpassed the challenge. Moreover, as a multiplatform solution, we know that our rules-based architecture will meet future integration needs.

WEAKNESSES: The initial configuration had challenges meeting the DMV's performance goals in the second test phase. Blaze Advisor was upgraded to the latest high-performance (compiled sequential) version, and the performance needs were met without any redesign.

SELECTION CRITERIA: The project team identified two products, Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor and ILOG JRules, as the best candidates. The ILOG product lacked the key business user interface features available in the Blaze Advisor rules engine.

DELIVERABLES: Our team's thorough methodology created an effective rule-set of 2,100. With an efficient use of intermediary rules, we reduced the overall rule-set, resulting in a reduction of coding and better visibility into the rules. Blaze Advisor also provided a stronger understanding of the levels of business change and how rule changes affect subsequent business processes.

VENDOR SUPPORT: Fair Isaac offered Java software training and on-site assistance during the pre-project implementation phase. They respond quickly to any problem and are committed to seeing our project succeed.

DOCUMENTATION: Documentation can be used to get the product up and running, both on the desktop development machines and the server deployment machines.

For more information on related topics visit the following related portals...
Business Rules and Data Quality.

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Jerrianne Seitz is a data processing manager for State of California Department of Motor Vehicles, Vehicle Registration.

Versata Announces Versata 6 -- A Comprehensive Business Rules Platform for Agile Application Development

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2005--

Versata Extends Platform to Include Business Rules for Decision Support, Process, Transaction and Data Logic

Versata, Inc. (Nasdaq:VATA), a leading independent provider of rapid application development platforms to automate and manage complex, data-intensive business applications, today announced Versata 6(TM), an integrated and comprehensive Business Rules Engine (BRE). Versata 6 significantly extends the capabilities of the Versata platform, and is one of the first BREs to include wide-ranging business rules for decision support, process, transaction, data logic, Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). Versata 6 provides customers with the power and flexibility to use an inclusive BRE for their applications needs, and to deliver IT systems that can be quickly delivered and modified to suit changing business conditions and regulatory requirements.

"Versata 6 was developed specifically to address customers' needs for a comprehensive and flexible BRE solution that extends well beyond traditional decision support rules," commented Brett Adam, chief technology officer and vice president of engineering, Versata. "Initial response from customers has been very gratifying, and confirms our belief that enterprises will welcome the productivity gains and reduced ownership costs that come from using business rules throughout their application environments."

Versata 6 uses declarative business rules to create business logic and applications based on open standards using J2EE(TM), SOA and Eclipse. It was specifically designed to address the needs of Java developers. According to Versata customer, Jean Paul Andrieu, vice president, systems manager of Union Bank of California, "We have depended on Versata technology as our primary development platform for years. Through its support for process and decision rules, standards-based services, and Eclipse, we expect Versata 6 to take the product to the next level and further boost the productivity of our development team."

Significantly Extends Use of Rules

Using a BRE, companies can externalize their business decision support rules from the applications they govern, allowing rules to be created by business analysts and modified at run time by business end users. By contrast, using traditional tools, rules are hard-coded into applications themselves, making them difficult and expensive to modify. Versata 6 includes support for decision rules based on an implementation of the industry-standard Rete algorithm, providing high performance for complex, data-driven business applications such as sophisticated risk management, loan approvals and credit scoring.

Most BRE solutions only address decision support type rules, a small subset of the total business rules most applications require. Versata 6 supports compiled data and transaction rules as well as dynamic decision and process rules, giving customers the freedom to use business rules much more widely throughout their applications. Versata 6 builds on the proven productivity and cost savings that Versata has been delivering to the marketplace for years. Versata customers typically experience 3 to 5 times faster application development using declarative programming and business rules than with procedural programming. Applications built with Versata have seen dramatic reductions in the total cost of ownership (TCO) due to reduced maintenance costs derived from declarative programming and business rules.

According to Jim Sinur, vice president and distinguished analyst, Gartner Inc., "Rule technologies can help achieve the agility that businesses require today, because rules are easy to change, accessible and responsive. There are at least a dozen business areas where rules can deliver benefits."(1)

..... for full press release