Business rules management systems

Lisa Fiondella, senior vice president of product management at Equifax, says that the driving force behind her adoption of JRules “was the reduction of translation errors between the business users and the programmers.” She adds two other reasons: greater efficiency in overall IT operations and a shorter time to market for Equifax’s new product, InterConnect, a Web-based processing and decisioning platform that approves loan credits. As Fiondella explains it, using a BRMS eliminates the “fire drill” response to demands for business logic changes in existing applications.

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A number of major banks, including Lloyds TSB, Barclays, and Citibank, use a BRMS for various applications, such as loan eligibility and pricing. A JRules application at one of these banks not only checks the applicant’s credit history, income, and so on, but it also checks out any co-signers and on that basis may recommend that the applicant apply for a higher status. After the applicant is approved, the BRMS finds the best price for the loan according to rules established and approved by the loan and sales departments. All of this activity is monitored daily by marketing and sales.

Changing the rules of the game

Although the BRMS has probably had its greatest success in the financial world, the technology is being applied to many other areas. Telecom companies in particular are frequent customers, often using a BRMS for a slew of applications, from determining how messages should be routed, to scheduling downtime for maintenance, to handling customer relations. Another frequent telecom application is the use of BRMS to help comply with and optimize operations for federal, intrastate, and interstate regulations.

When first introduced to the BRMS concept, enterprises typically face a conceptual hurdle in teasing out the rules that govern various business functions. After that Rubicon is crossed, however, and analysts focus on the rules that change dynamically, a BRMS can be applied successfully in some unexpected places.

If there’s one industry that demands quick reaction to competitive pressure and customer behavior, it’s the casino business. According to Harrah’s CIO Tim Stanley, marketing managers for the casino giant analyze business activity at each location every day. Based on that analysis, they come up with a new plan or promotion, and using JRules’ BAL, they implement new rules that are then tested and put into production within 24 hours.

 “Sometimes I walk out of my office and see a group of customers actively playing at a time that used to be slow,  and I say to myself, ‘They wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for the one-off promotions I can do with our rules system,’ ” Stanley says.

Picking the right BRMS

BRMS tools cover a wide range, from open source languages to full-blown enterprise systems. Those who want to get their feet wet with a BRMS might begin with Jess, which is a free download. Major enterprise development projects, however, require collaborative communication among all the participants — business analysts, coders, the CEO, end-users, finance directors, and so on. Such projects are best served by a BRMS with all the bells and whistles.

ILOG’s JRules (the Java version) and Rules (the C/C++ version) and Fair Isaac’s Blaze Advisor are enterprise tools with the necessary debugging, testing, and analysis tools. They are products of companies that focus on overall business optimization. On the other hand, enterprise customers that need blinding speed and are willing to live with limited tools would do well to consider OPSJ.

Business rule languages have been in existence for decades, so it’s quite possible that many IT shops will have developers with previous experience. An IT department with staff that has prior training in OPS or CLIPS (C Language Interface for Production Systems) syntax might consider Haley’s Authorete, PST’s CLIPS/R2, or Sandia National Laboratories’ Jess. And of course, new tools always arrive on the market with new twists to consider, such as PegaRules (just broken out as a new product from PegaSystems) and Corticon, a new BRMS product that offers a spreadsheet interface for rules input.

The more polished products, such as JRules or Blaze Advisor, make self-service rule changes easier for business analysts, but experts in business rules logic must always be available to ensure BRMSes work smoothly. When a BRMS is properly implemented and supported, IT can expect operating cost reductions of 10 percent to 15 percent, according to Gartner.

That estimate doesn’t take into account the intangibles of being able to respond quickly to shifting business demands. That advantage  may be hard to quantify — and the notion of isolating and consolidating business logic may seem odd at first. In most cases, however, the payoff is next to inevitable.

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