Abstract

For July there will be a two part meeting on Business Rules. The first part will take place at COOUG's meeting (July 8th @ 5:30) at the Hartford (directions). The second meeting will take place at the regular Java SIG meeting (July 15th @ 5:30) at CSC in East Hartford. The July 8th meeting will be an introductory presentation to business rules whereas the second meeting will focus on business rules in action with in-depth discussion of ILOG's JRules.

Part I: Tuesday, July 8th @ 5:30 Hartford Tower

Business applications require tremendous flexibility in order to adapt to changing customer demands, regulatory requirements, company policies and competition. Business rules technology enables a clear separation between true business policy and the rest of the application code, allowing the business policy to change independently and providing the ability for end business users to directly modify and maintain the business rules while providing greater control, flexibility and functionality to IT. Business Rules are an increasingly important means for managing highly variable business logic in Java technology-based applications, and in Java technology-based integration layers in the enterprise.

Object oriented languages such as Java provide an ideal foundation for rule-based development, and Java technology-based applications built around inference engines enable the rapid, business-driven evolution of software behavior required in many rapidly changing business environments. The insurance industry, e.g., benefits from business rules technology to manage product evolution driven by regulatory environments that vary from state to state, and by changing risk environments. Similar benefits are seen in other industries. In general, rule-based architectures permit information-driven enterprises to decouple the way they engage their customers from static software implementations, allowing more rapid product evolution, improved customer service delivery, and increased day-to-day flexibility in operations.

This presentation will discuss:

• Evolution of business rulestechnology (from rule engines to business rules management)
• How to integrate business rulestechnology into Java applicationsand legacy systems, including applications running on the J2EE platform
• How to identify structural andfixed versus non-structural and changeable logic elements in your design
• How more flexible applicationscan be developed using business rules with real-world examples from theinsurance industry

Part II - Tuesday July 15th @ 5:30 CSC East Hartford

The July 15th meeting was the conclusion of a two part meeting sequence on business rules by Ilog. The first presentation focused on the basics of business rules providing a background of the technology. In the second part we saw business rules in action with a comprehensive demo of Ilog's JRules engine.

Door Prizes: Special thanks to Addison-Wesley and Ilog for the excellent door prizes as well as CSC for the facilities!

Abstract

This presentation will cover the following items:

• Detailed presentation of ILOG JRules and its major components (rule engine, repository, user interfaces)
• ILOG JRules: From rules expert system to Business Rules Management Solution
• Real-world JRules demonstration from the insurance industry
• How to develop rule-based applications with JRules
• How to manage Business Rules with JRules (Ruleflow, Query, Versioning, History, etc.)
• How to expose Business Rules to Business Users and deploy them
• How to integrate the rule engine into Java applications and legacy systems, including applications running on the J2EE platform

Speakers

Nicolas Robbe is Director of Business Solutions at ILOG, a leader in Business Rules Management and Optimization Software. Nicolas has over 12 years of experience in the fields of business rules technologies and optimization, and their application to specific-industry problems. Prior to joining ILOG in 1995, Nicolas spent several years in software engineering positions at Siemens and Bull Computers. He attended the University of Colorado and the Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, France, where he graduated with a MS in Computer Science.

Lionel Macé is a Technical Account Manager at ILOG, a leader in Business Rules Management, Visualization and Optimization Software. Lionel has over 3 years of experience in the fields of business rules technologies and visualization, and their application to specific-industry problems. Prior to joining ILOG in 2000, Lionel spent several years in software engineering positions at Alcatel. He attended the National Conservatory of Arts and Trades de Paris, France, where he graduated with a MS in Computer Science.

Raffles