How to Build a Business Rules Engine: Extending Application Functionality through Metadata Engineering (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) [Paperback]

Malcolm Chisholm (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558609180 | ISBN-13: 978-1558609181 | Publication Date: November 12, 2003 | Edition: 1

· This is the only book that demonstrates how to develop a business rules engine. Covers user requirements, data modeling, metadata, and more.
· A sample application is used throughout the book to illustrate concepts. The code for the sample application is available online at http://www.refdataportal.com.
· Includes conceptual overview chapters suitable for management-level readers, including general introduction, business justification, development and implementation considerations, and more.

· This is the only book that demonstrates how to develop a business rules engine. Covers user requirements, data modeling, metadata, and more.
· A sample application is used throughout the book to illustrate concepts. The code for the sample application is available online at http://www.refdataportal.com.
· Includes conceptual overview chapters suitable for management-level readers, including general introduction, business justification, development and implementation considerations, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

The first book for developers on the emerging and increasingly popular subject of business rules engines.

From the Back Cover

[shelving code] Data Management/Programming

Business rules engines can make organizations more agile by allowing them to manage diverse sets of operating rules, such as many different contracts for goods and services with different clients. For example, business rules engines can contain interfaces that allow users to define business rules to add specific functionality to software applications in order to take advantage of particular business arrangements. This enables organizations to overcome the barriers of time, money, and reliability that traditional programming approaches present when trying to include variable business situations within information systems. Rules engines can also speed software implementation, provide increased auditability, and ensure engineering compliance. The capacity to understand and manage business rules outside of the "black box" of program code can improve the overall quality of IT infrastructures.

How to Build a Business Rules Engine is the first book to provide a detailed roadmap, with examples, for building a business rules engine. Written from the author"s 12 years of experience building business rules functionality, this book covers the necessary background and concepts, as well as the specific steps needed to build a rules engine. The book describes not only the components that a rules engine must have, but also the organizational issues that may determine its success after it has been built and implemented.

Features
· The only book that demonstrates how to develop a business rules engine. Covers user requirements, data modeling, repository design, metadata engineering, and more.
· Includes conceptual overview chapters suitable for management-level readers, including general introduction, business justification, and development and implementation considerations.
· A sample application is used throughout the book to illustrate concepts. The code for the sample application is available online at http://www.bizrulesengines.com.

About the Author
Malcolm Chisholm holds an M.A. from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. from the University of Bristol. He has over 20 years of experience in information technology and 12 years building business rules engines. His expertise has allowed him to work in various industries focusing on systems development and data administration. Recently he has worked with the United Nations Development Program and Deloitte and Touche.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 483 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (November 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558609180
• ISBN-13: 978-1558609181
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Warning: Read before buying!, August 9, 2005

By 

a software developer (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Build a Business Rules Engine: Extending Application Functionality through Metadata Engineering (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

As a C++ developer recently tasked to design a "rules-engine" for a real-time application, I purchased this book with the hope of discovering an alternative to a "true" rule-engine (i.e., one that utilizes rule chaining and a pattern matching algorithm).

Although this book does give a step-by-step description of how to implement a "rules-engine" using Microsoft Access and Visual Basic for Applications, there is absolutely no discussion of how a rules-engine could be implemented in any other development environment.

The relevant material in the book could easily be presented in about 200 pages or less. Rules are not really addressed until chapter 15. Most of the early chapters deal with such topics that are tangential at best. Just one chapter discussing the differences between the type of rule-engine described in the book and an expert system type of rule-engine would have made the book useful.

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical aspects of business rules, March 6, 2004

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Build a Business Rules Engine: Extending Application Functionality through Metadata Engineering (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

Although this book's title may lead you to believe it is solely about developing a business rules engine, it is much more. First, to answer the question that developers may want to know about the book - yes, there is code and it can be downloaded from the web site that supports the book. However, in my opinion, the real reason to buy this book is to gain a deeper understanding of the practical aspects of incorporating business rules into applications. Where books such as "Principles of the Business Rule Approach" (ISBN 0201788934) cover the subject well from the conceptual and systems analyst perspectives, this is the only book to approach business rules from a tools and integration perspective.

Topics range from data modeling to working with batch processes, and every relevant consideration in between. You'll find that the author heavily favors the use of reference data, which is no coincidence because he wrote, in my opinion, the definitive book on that topic as well - "Managing Reference Data in Enterprise Databases" (ISBN 1558606971). More importantly, though, is how thoroughly this book covers all issues associated with developing and implementing a business rules engine, especially with respect to enterprise data architectures and associated databases.

If you have mastered the concepts of business rules and are ready to implement them this book is the place to start.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent technology primer for this subject area, March 23, 2008

By 

K. Ambrose (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Build a Business Rules Engine: Extending Application Functionality through Metadata Engineering (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

As a database designer and programmer for over a decade, I had always wondered how a business rules engine might actually be implemented. What were the neccessary "parts"? What was the overall technology strategy for turning documented rules into executable actions? What might an interface need to look like, and what functionality would it need to offer to support a working business rules engine? All these questions are answered in this book. The implementation design provided (as working code in Microsoft Access and VBA) is not "enterprise" ready in the sense that is would support hundreds of users and tens of thousands of business rules. But it is a comprehensive "proof of concept" - with working code - that clearly addresses design and implementation strategies and methods required for these engines. This book has now surely given me more understanding about how these engines can work than probably anyone else has in my organization of over 1000 employees (that admittedly has never implemented this type of funtionality but may very well need to do so sometime in the future).

Prerequisites for understanding this tutorial would be sound understanding of relational database theory (what effective information processing systems do not require this understanding?), good basic understanding of conventional database development concepts, as well as understanding of typical data processing required for both interactive data entry and batch processing of data.