PRODUCT NEWS

New ILOG JRules 4.0: More Power for Business People

More than two years have passed since ILOG embarked on an aggressive campaign to make its Java business rule components beat the competition's. Now ILOG is entering a new phase of this successful program of "Bringing Business Rules to Business People."

With the new ILOG JRules 4.0, ILOG gives a broader audience the capability of managing business rules through a repository that allows business managers who are strong on policy but weak on programming skills to store and query their business rules.

ILOG JRules 4.0 provides a complete management environment to support business rules from specification to implementation. Business rules are stored in the ILOG JRules Repository, where they can be organized by business category and accessed by developers, and business users and analysts. In addition to the rules, the repository can be extended to store rule properties such as author, status and effective/expiration date, and application-specific metadata, including business process descriptions and configuration files.

The repository allows business rules to be managed independently of deployment and execution. They can be stored in the repository and tracked using a status property, and new versions of rules can be stored along with predecessors in the repository, allowing organizations to track changes in business policy over time. The repository also comes with a permission manager to control access to the business rules.

The main benefits of the ILOG JRules Repository are fourfold:

• Reduced development effort: Organizations no longer need to develop custom rule management applications. Traditionally, organizations have stored their business rules in databases or developed custom applications to manage them. ILOG JRules 4.0 offers a complete business rule management environment.
• Increased control over the management and maintenance of business policy: Organizations can store and manage their business rules in a single place. Multiple projects can be stored in the ILOG JRules Repository so that all of the business rules in an organization can be maintained in a single place.
• Simplified application maintenance: Business users or analysts can use the ILOG JRules Web-Editor or a customized version of ILOG JRules Builder to maintain the business rules executed in an application. When business rules are delivered to business users and analysts, turnaround time for business policy changes can be greatly reduced.
• More flexible deployment options: Business rules can be extracted from the repository at development time and migrated to a production environment, or applications can extract business rules from the repository at runtime.

The ILOG JRules Repository extends ILOG JRules' unique features for placing business rule development in the hands of those responsible for setting business policy. Already the powerful ILOG JRules Builder enables nonprogrammers to use a familiar lexicon in writing business rules, and integrate them with a running system, without taking the system offline.

This new feature greatly enhances an already outstanding Java business rule software component. With ILOG JRules, users also benefit from:

• Platform independence: ILOG JRules is pure Java, enabling it to be integrated into any Java application, fulfilling the "write once, use anywhere" Java promise.
• J2EE, XML and Web service integration: ILOG JRules can be embedded directly into Enterprise Java Beans, uses XML code without an intermediate translator, and can be used to implement or create Web services.
• Automatic database mapping: ILOG JRules can access any JDBC-compliant database automatically within rules using a database mapping created with a graphical interface or XML.
• Rule compilation: ILOG JRules improves performance for compiling rules by a factor of 4 to 10.