Externalize Business Rules with Oracle Business Rules Engine

In the traditional programming, the business logic is included in the code itself, and everytime code has to be modified for changes in business rules and the implementation It would be a great idea to externalize the rules + actions out of the code so that the rules are flexible and configurable, and the code implementation would be generic.

Two approaches. To start with,

a) The Rules + Actions can be represented in a single .xml file which will then be parsed and converted to java objects to generate the executatble logic in the Application component logic. We need to define the Rules syntax and parsing mechanisms. By externalizing the rules, I would see the benefits that we would have major benefits in terms of changing code for each rule implemenation, and maintenance benefits, and Developers/Business People can modify/add the rules, etc by externalizing the rules.

b) Another approach is to use the Rules Engine, such as Oracle Business Rules Engine, part of Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Check out http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/business_rules/index.html

Interesting paper http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/business_rules/pdf/bpelAndRules.pdf
We will discuss more about Oracle Business Rules Engine in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
Ananthalakshmi