ILOG BRMS V7.0 is a major release, and that is probably a major understatement! Based on the foundations of the JRules 6.x architecture, BRMS V7.0 has two major overarching themes: business user empowerment and enabling platform agnostic decision services. Supporting these two themes are a panoply of technical advances across the whole product stack.
The BRMS team has worked incredibly hard over the past 18 months to deliver what is without a doubt the most ambitious release we have attempted since I joined ILOG (my first release was JRules 4.6). As an indication of the work involved, the first construction iteration for BRMS V7.0 started 19th November 2007! Here is a very quick round-up of the major new features. I hope to dive into the details of each of these over the coming days and weeks.
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| Rule Team Server Managing Rules for .NET Projects |
RTS can now host rule projects that will be deployed to the .NET platform. This provides the enterprise with
a unified and platform agnostic rule management environment, that provides governance, reporting and permission management required for successful enterprise deployments.
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| Synchronization from Rule Studio for .NET to Rule Team Server |
To publish rules to Rule Team Server .NET customers can now synchronize their rule projects inside Visual Studio with the RTS rule repository.
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| JRules Linux z & Rule Team Server Linux z |
Deployment to COBOL applications running on System z is supported from both Rule Studio for Java (based on Eclipse) and the Rule Team Server web environment.
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| Synchronize RuleDocs with Rule Team Server |
Rule Solutions for Office now supports both JRules and Rules for .NET products, and collections of RuleDocs can be synchronized with Rule Team Server, allowing teams to easily move back and forth between document-based rule management and a centralized rule repository. Rule Team Server can synchronize with RuleDocs hosted on a local file system or accessible via WebDAV.
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Decision Validation Services
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| Rule Team Server and Decision Validation Services |
The features of the Rule Scenario Manager web console have been improved and merged into the Rule Team Server web interface. Testing and simulation artifacts benefit from the underlying capabilities of the RTS repository, including access control and version management. Line of business users can interactively author rules and run tests or simulations.
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| Storing Scenarios in MS Excel Spreadsheets |
The persistence of Decision Validation Services scenarios in MS Excel spreadsheets has been greatly improved, resulting in spreadsheets that allow line of business users to more easily manage large numbers of test or simulation scenarios.
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| Executing Scenarios inside Rule Team Server |
Line of business users can execute testing scenarios inside Rule Team Server and review the results within the same environment used for managing business rules. Sample input data and expected output data is loaded from MS Excel spreadsheets. Execution reports are stored by the RTS repository and may be accessed for audit or governance purposes.
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| Business Simulation inside Rule Team Server |
Business users can run simulations inside RTS to either simulate the effects of changing rules based on historical data or the effects of varying data (such as changes to demographics) on existing rules. Business simulations can use extension points to customize the calculation of Key Performance Indicators, data loaders to access historical data and result renders to provide compelling graphics to summarize the results of executing large data sets.
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| Decision Validation Services Customization |
Technical users can use plugins inside Rule Studio for Java to customize DVS and to annotate the Business Object Model with metadata used for testing. DVS customization tasks have been added to the Rule Project Map inside Rule Studio.
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| Decision Validation Services Debugging |
Technical users can execute and debug scenarios inside Rule Studio for Java.
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| Decision Warehouse |
JRules Rule Execution Server now has a Decision Warehouse, allowing the details of every rule-based decision to be automatically logged to a database, for example for SOX, HIPAA or Basel II compliance purposes. The decision warehouse can be queried through the RES console and includes all the information required to understand how and why a decision was made. The decision warehouse provides extension points to allow integration with existing analytics databases and 3rd-party business intelligence tools. The decision warehouse may be used as a source of historical data when running business simulations using Decision Validation Services. A reference to a fired rule in a decision trace automatically hyperlinks to the rule within Rule Team Server.
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Rule Solutions for Office
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| Publish RuleDocs, Update Rule Team Server |
Synchronize Rule Team Server with one or more RuleDocs, stored on the file system or in a WebDAV accessible repository. Use RTS queries to select the rules to publish.
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| Edit Decision Tables using MS Excel 2007 |
Easy to use for line of business users thanks to decision table specific buttons in the ribbon bar and comprehensive error checking, preview and validation. Metadata for the decision table can be edited using the panel to the right of the screen.
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| Edit Business Rules using MS Word 2007 |
Free text editing of business rules within MS Word, that feels like editing a normal text document, but benefits from error checking and a prediction menu to guide the business user and ensure that rules are syntactically correct. Use a vocabulary view to browse the business vocabulary and a properties panel to edit metadata. Documents can mix executable business rules and free text documentation and supporting graphics.
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Business User Empowerment
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| Decision Table Templates |
Decision Table Templates can be used inside Rule Studio for Java and Rule Team Server to constrain the use of an instance of a Decision Table.
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| Rule Team Server Quick Edit |
Use the Quick Edit button in Rule Team Server to quickly edit the contents of an artifact inline, with a single click.
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| Static Analysis Improvements |
We are introducing constrained semantic queries on method phrases. Previously queries were only on attributes,
now you can find all the rules which approves a credit greater than an amount, where the amount is set by a method. For example:
find all rules with a credit > given amount will find instances in which amount is implemented by a method call.
Analyze ruleflow runtime rule selection (dynamic select) in consistency checking: previously, dynamic select was not considered when evaluating ‘may apply when’ or ‘may become applicable when’.
Data space coverage analysis: detects gaps in rule coverage of a data space, and proposes rules to fill the gaps. It is available in Rule Studio, in a new dedicated Rule Analysis view.
Impact analysis queries: you can now create a query to find all rules that may trigger another rule or be triggered by another rule. This is available both in Rule Studio for Java and Rule Team Server (JRules projects only).
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| Rule Team Server HTML Reports |
HTML reports in Rule Team Server have been re-implemented to provide more business user friendly and useable reports, that include a table of contents, better hyperlinking and styling.
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| Rule Team Server Excel Reports |
Rule Team Server now provides MS Excel format reports, useful to review the metadata for rule artifacts.
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Rule Studio for Java
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| BOM Update View |
A new view dedicated to reconciling differences between the Business Object Model and the Executable Object Model is provided. The view displays all differences and proposes actions that are applicable to resolve them. Classes that are imported from the XOM many been automatically verbalized.
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| Rule Analysis View |
The new Rule Analysis View is used to interactively perform static rule analysis within Rule Studio for Java.
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| Enhanced Ruleflow Editor |
The ruleflow editor has been rewritten to provide improved usability and to integrate with the Eclipse property sheet.
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| Support for New Application Servers |
- IBM WebSphere Application Server V7.0
- JBoss 5.0
- Oracle 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.1)
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| Support for New Databases |
- IBM DB2 9.5
- IBM DB2 5.4 for i/Series
- Oracle 11g
- Sybase 15
- Apache Derby 10.4
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