When you’re building business rule applications, generic software-development methodologies just aren’t enough.

Agile Business Rule Development (ABRD) is a step-by-step process for developing business rule applications. An iterative methodology, ABRD employs agile software-development values. Rule development is organized as a series of cycles: discovery, analysis, authoring, validation, and deployment. Your team stays on schedule, delivering outstanding business rule applications.

View this free one-hour webinar and learn how to:

• Leverage ABRD as first open-source methodology for business rules
• Implement and deploy rules in an SOA or BPM context
• Engage in rule discovery and analysis

Jerome Boyer, author of ABRD, describes the methodology and demonstrates how it works.

• View the recorded version
• Read the slides from the presentation

Nicolas Robbe, ILOG’s VP Product Marketing, does a great job of positioning ILOG and BRMS in the SOA space in a recently published video interview by SYS-CON TV from the SOA World West 2007 conference in San Francisco.

In this session, Ian Isaac and his colleagues from aigdirect.com described how they use ILOG BRMS and a Service Oriented Architecure to ease the process of integrating mergers and acquisitions into their IT infrastructure.

In the insurance industry, mergers and acquisitions often leave companies with multiple systems for billing, claims and policy administration that tend to fragment processing and impede growth and change management.

ILOG BRMS’s enabled aigdirect.com to face this challenge with agility and transparency while meeting their corporate quality control requirements.

The team took questions from the audience and shared their best practices and lessons learned when leveraging BRMS and SOA across the enterprise, as well as some of the benefits and milestones already achieved.

My major takeaway from this session was when the team explained the significant resistance they had initially encountered from the business side to the BRMS approach. People were concerned that the automated system would have an adverse affect on customer service unless all automated decisions and processes were manually reviewed. This resistance to change was quite understandable. These people own the business process and needed to see clear proof that the BRMS solution was effective and reliable before putting their trust in it. They quickly discovered, however, that the BRMS system actually helped them enormously to improve customer service and provide a faster, more consistent service.

Daryl Plummer, group vice president and Chief Gartner Fellow

In this lively presentation, Daryl Plummer highlighted the changing perspective around the way systems are built, deployed and used.

Daryl started by pointing out that when it comes to adopting a technology like SOA, you need to build a case for the business value. You also need to be aware that SOA is not something you choose to do, it’s something that will be forced upon you. Why? Because the frequency and level of change in the business world is continually increasing.

If we don’t plan for this change:

• Chaos reigns
• Costs are increased
• Business agility decreases
• ‘Seat of the pants’ decision making increases

It’s not just about being quick - you need to plan in order to be agile. How does BPM help us with this? If the business processes are more dynamic, this will have a positive impact on these areas of the enterprise:

• Business agility
• Decision making
• Revenue opportunities
• Customer satisfaction
• Regulatory compliance

It’s a misnomer to talk about alignment between business and IT. It’s more a case of fusion. Another misunderstanding is to talk about SOA integration - it’s about interoperability. It’s about letting systems communicate with each other - not merging or integrating them.

So what exactly is a service? Something that abstracts the work. It lets us ask something and receive a result without having to worry about how the result was arrived at. Daryl claims that people are service-driven, using the example of how we use electricity. Once we find the socket, we just plug in our appliance and get on with it. We don’t care how the electricity is generated or which generator gives us the power.

SOA allows us to control how the services are used. Daryl uses the example of the travel plug that allows us to use a US hairdryer in the UK. This interface is the equivalent of an SOA.

There has been an evolution in the way applications are written. In the past the whole application was developed as a single unit. Now, we separate out the different parts. User interfaces are in portal or on the web. Databases have been pulled out into separate applications. Decision points have been pulled out and put in rules engines. The processes have been pulled out so business people can alter the process themselves, without having to try to communicate changes to the IT team. When it comes to the web, SOAP and WSDL allow us to link services together.

In order to make your business process-centric, you need to:

• Make sure you have a list of all critical processes
• Have a named owner for every process

Daryl went on to explain the link between events and services. The service should be constructed to respond to an event. An event is a change in the system or the state. When an event happens, I’ll do something. I’ll design in a more declarative fashion. That fits the SOA model. I can handle information that’s coming from anywhere and continue to add processes to the sytem to evolve it.

Daryl added a note of caution when pulling everything together. SOA is IT-driven. BPM is business-led. You need a process-centric stack in the middle that will tie the two together, rather than assuming that this will naturally happen.

Where will this all lead? The final stage is the agile business structure where the structure of the business can lead to innovation.

For more information and links, check out James Taylor’s commentary on this session.

Moderator:
Tony Baer (TB), principal, onStrategies; formerly an analyst with Datamonitor/Computerwire

Panelists:
Barry Vandevier (BV), CTO, Travelocity
Sandeep Gupta (SG), Vice President, Strategic Software Development, Equifax
Chris French (CF), Partner, Deloitte Consulting
Sam Paper (SP), Senior Vice President, Client Management and Credit Technology, Strategy and Service Orientation, Bank of America

TB: What is your strategy on .NET?

SP: We’re pleased with the responsiveness of ILOG in bringing .NET products to market. Particularly the Microsoft integration. We look forward to seeing this in JRules.

TB: How is the economic environment effecting your product development?

BV: We’re currently assessing our view of spend. But we do need to continue to innovate. We’re still focussed on our strategy on services. Our global development team is also important to us. Whether or not there’s a recession we still have to do our core business.
SG: We are proceeding with caution. We’re seeing some strain in the retail sector. From an innovation point of view you need to be in the right place if the recession does hit. We will still need to meet our customer’s requirements tomorrow, hence we need to continue planning and spending.
CF: We still expect to grow over the next year, although we have seen a slowdown in the FSI industry.
SP: From the IT side, paradoxically there is more opportunity for IT investment to help streamline operations and make processes more efficient.

TB: On a related note, the dollar is not as strong as it has been. How has this affected your global picture?

BV: We find talent across the globe - albeit India or Argentina. Development and marketing in a global realm makes a lot of sense for us.
SG: On the supply side, we have not seen any major drop as a result of the change in exchange rate.
SP: We have a global model - even the work we’re doing with ILOG is coming out of Shanghai. You need to have flexibility from where you deliver your solutions.
SP: All of our BRMS development is here in the US. This has not had a major effect on us.

TB: There has always been a gap between the C* suite and IT. How do you deal with this?

SG: The divide is growing wider. It’s becoming more difficult for the C* suite to understand the strategic level: an example being which technologies will survive the current proliferation. IT wants to be oblivious to what the business imperatives are. Technical teams need to make sure they do take on the needs of the C* suite.
BV: IT is always pushed to develop faster. BRMS is a key element to help us achieve this. If we get to the points where we need to quickly change suppliers, we can do so with a BRMS. Better, faster, cheaper.
SP: A BRMS capability gives the business more transparency, flexibility.

TB: As a profession, are we getting too infatuated with open source?

BV: We’re big fans of open source but we do use commercial applications as well. It depends on the application -it’s a balance. We are also intersted in standards and make sure that we don’t just jump on the latest technologies.
SG: What has happened with open source is a phenomenon. But it does depend on the business use. Open source particularly benefits the new entrants into the market.
CF: This area is more driven by our clients needs.
SP: It’s a balance - we have to look at each case closely.

TB: Can we overdo process?

BV: If you’re not careful, you can go overboard. Particularly if you over-adopt SOX. You have to make sure you have a happy medium.
SG: As far as the BRMS is concerned, it depends where you are. Eg. government needs due diligence. If the process is heavier, you need more people. If you are leaner, you can get greater ROI from your workforce. Google is a great case in point. We need to make sure we have the right balance.
CF: One problem we have is how we rationalise and limit the redundancy where many systems are concerned. You have to make sure you don’t just layer on top of legacy systems as this will lead to problems in the future.

TB: How do you avoid the technical/political tug of war with the adoption of a BRMS?

CF: We had to look at what a rule was and where we should apply them. Rules are everywhere but you need to concentrate on the core rules. What is actually impacted? You need to get into the science of what rules are about and where they should be applied.
SP: We need to focus on our core applications to redeploy a BPM/SOA. We haven’t talked about our packaged applications.

I was another fly-on-the-wall for the second analysts breakfast. This time round analysts from Gartner were on hand to answer questions around business process management (BPM), service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business rules management systems (BRMS) issues.

Analysts:
David McCoy (DM), managing vice president and Gartner Fellow
Daryl Plummer (DP), group vice president and Chief Gartner Fellow

Here’s a few of the questions I picked up on:

Question: Do you find that you don’t need a rules engine if you are using BPM?

DP: A BPM suite is supposed to do everything, include handling the rules although you can switch out the rules engine, if needed. You get the extra flexibility but you need a way to link the rules with the process. For this reason, in the BPM suite it can be easier to use the rules within the BPM suite. However if you do switch to a product such as ILOG’s BRMS, this will allow you to be more flexible with your rules.

Question: How do you see the BPM/BRMS market right now?

DM: There are many components that make up a BPM - one of those is the integrated BRMS. Most BPM systems have some rules. They are the main consumers of BRMS products. In many cases, a standalone BRMS makes less sense.

Question: what is the advantage of pulling out the BRMS from the BPM?

DM: You could pull all rules out of a service. But this is not always valid. You’ll end up with 1000’s of rules as a result, including all the programmatic rules. You should concentrate on pulling out the rules that correspond to business decisions. Concentrate on:

• Volatile rules
• Rules that affect business value - those that will make you more competitive and responsive
• Auditable rules - the rules that you need to monitor

A good rule of thumb is to look at the rule. If switching it will make a meaningful difference to the business, then externalize it.

Question: How do we deal with old systems? Should we apply an SOA to them and then apply rules?

DM: Yes, take the old application and wrap it with an SOA layer. Let the layer talk to the API for the application. The advantage of SOA is that you don’t need to care what goes on inside.

Sandy Carter, vice president, SOA and WebSphere Strategy, Channels and Marketing for IBM

Sandy Carter is responsible for driving IBM’s cross-company, worldwide SOA marketing initiatives. She is considered an expert in the SOA field and is author of The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0.

Innovation that matters to CEOs:

• Extend the ability to collaborate inside and outside
• New innovative business model and processes
• Leverage information for business optimization

Most CEOs are looking for change at a dramatic level. The change needs to be at the level of both business and IT in order to have a significant effect.

This is where service orientated architecture (SOA) comes in. SOA differs from other technologies in that it’s service-oriented: SOA implementation is as much about business as technology.

This need for change has lead to the development In the field of business analytics, there is a move from KPIs to KAIs - that’s Key Agility Indicators. IBM have developed a benchmarking tool to show KAIs for different industries. Forrester and Gartner are due to publish reports in this area.

Sandy then went on to list key characteristics that make companies agile:

Evolutionary

Change business scenarios on-the-fly using current systems as building blocks. Smart SOA is the key. Start with a single project. Keep it simple. Then extend in an end-to-end fashion.

IBM practices what it preaches and does implement SOA. From 2002 there has been a roadmap for SOA implementation, moving towards the ‘Factory in a box’ model. The key is agility, rather than cost-cutting. IBM concentrated on how quickly it could switch suppliers. This helped make the business more agile and allowed it more flexibility in negotiations with suppliers.

Business-led

Allow your customers to make their own changes. Many companies find this difficult, as it means giving up a degree of control. However, Web 2.0 is driving the transferal of power to the consumer. This is possible through the adoption of dynamic platforms and the building of web-based communities. Sandy gives the example of her custom mashup dashboards she uses to track her business within IBM.

The provision of business policies is also important. Policies should be incorporated with business rules. Policies are in business language - not logical IT language or limited to strict procedural flow. These policies, once defined, are translated into business rules.

Collaborative

Continuous collaboration of business and IT delivers value, according to recent study by McKinsey/London School of Economics. Collaborative changes between IT and business far outweigh individual business process or IT process changes.

At the employee level, there is a new ‘collaborative’ skill-set appearing. This group have both strong business and IT skills. IBM has been at the forefront of training for these skills, which help individuals build the link between process and SOA. Gaming technology is used for teaching as simulators are more effective than a classroom teaching environment. IBM has developed online simulations that have been adopted by more than 2000 universities.

Closing note: make sure you understand what influences change in your business area and act accordingly.

If you’re a policy manager in a Fortune 1000 company, chances are that your company continues to maintain real-time business applications written in COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language).

If the challenge of making your existing mainframe COBOL applications more agile without disrupting your mission-critical systems brings you out in a cold sweat, or you simply don’t have the budget or the time to redevelop all your existing COBOL applications, then you should definitely attend DIALOG 08 to hear more about ILOG Rules for COBOL.

Now, I’ll be honest and say that, other than the hoo-ha around the whole Y2K issue, I don’t actually know a great deal about COBOL. Fortunately, Wikipedia is my friend, and ILOG’s BRMS Product Marketing team have been kind enough to bring me up to speed about why this new add-on for ILOG JRules is so significant (about 80% of the world’s top businesses do rely on COBOL to keep running, after all). Following yesterday’s official product announcement, James Taylor was also quick to provide some interesting commentary in his blog about the new add-on.

In a nutshell, ILOG Rules for COBOL brings the advantages of ILOG’s leading business rule management system (BRMS) to existing COBOL applications. The key lies in gradually moving the rules from your COBOL applications to a central repository, where they can be externally managed, and yet still executed in COBOL code.

Like it or not, COBOL isn’t going away any time soon, but with ILOG Rules for COBOL, you finally have a way to access the business logic that’s locked within your large mainframe applications. With JRules BRMS and Rules for COBOL, you can manage change in legacy applications NOW. But don’t just take my word for it: stop by the BRMS booth in the Solutions Hall at DIALOG 08 and be among the first to see demos of the new COBOL add-on and talk directly to the people who developed it.

Of the many customer applications that will be showcased at DIALOG 08, the one developed by SAT, the tax collecting authority for the Mexican Federal Government, really caught my eye - and not just because of the opportunity for a cute title for today’s post. Statistics such as “a 93% reduction in paperwork,” “1,800 tax-paying scenarios,” and “2.5 million tax return questionnaires” really do grab your attention!

The application, which makes it easier for SAT to implement changes in taxation policy, was developed with the help of ILOG alliance partner EMC Documentum. It relies on ILOG’s business rule management system (BRMS) together with a new service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Business Process Management (BPM) implementation to automate the processing of tax questionnaires, determine taxpayer credit worthiness, and manage workload assignment policies.

SAT’s business rules are very complex and implementing these rules with regular code was proving increasingly difficult and painful. ILOG’s BRMS provided the necessary separation between the business rules and the application code, offering immediate benefits such as the ability for taxpayers to self-register online, and enabling tax officers to change rules by themselves without depending on IT.

The statistics are indeed impressive, but what’s really inspiring here is the long term contribution that this application will make to the Mexican government’s ongoing program of tax reforms. While JRules can’t (yet) make you live forever, it is helping to improve the distribution of wealth and the living standards of millions of Mexicans - and that’s definitely worth a closer look!

Roberto Pazaràn, architectural leader, Taxation Administration Service of Mexico, and Christopher D. Preston, senior director, Worldwide Product Marketing TCM, Content Management and Archiving, EMC Corporation, will present Agile Tax Management Using Rules and BPM: Tax Administration Service of Mexico at DIALOG 08 on Monday February 25th from 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm.

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the food theme again for today’s post. Food, after all, is an important part of any conference (just ask James) and it’s not every day you get to have breakfast with some of the top guys from Forrester, IDC, and Gartner, right? Well, at DIALOG 08 you do!

On Monday morning of the conference (February 25th), from 8:00 am - 9:00 am, John Rymer from Forrester and Steve Hendrick from IDC will be available to answer your questions about BRMS, BPM, SOA and other business technology trends. On Tuesday morning, from 7:30 am-8:30 am, it’ll be the turn of Gartner Fellows David McCoy and Daryl Plummer.

Later on Tuesday morning, Daryl will give a keynote address for the BRMS track where he’ll be predicting that, due to the increasing rate of change in the legal and geopolitical environment, dynamic business process management will soon no longer be an option, but a requirement.

Seems to me that missing either of these Ask the Analyst breakfast sessions is not an option either! See you there!