How to Build a Business Rules Engine: Extending Application Functionality Through Metadata Engineering

By Malcolm Chisholm

Book Overview

? 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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558609180
• ISBN13: 9781558609181
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

excellent technology primer for this subject area

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.

Pragmatic Advice from an Experienced Practitioner

It is refreshing to see a book (like mine, Enterprise Knowledge Integrity - The Data Qualtiy Approach) that not only discusses the value of formalizing business rules, but also describes how to make those rules actionable. The fundamental approach described in this book provides great detail for anyone who is interested in actually transitioning from an environment where business knowledge is deployed by programmers and managed within application code to one where business rules are incorporated as enterprise metadata to be managed as critical organizational knowledge. I have known Malcolm for some time, as well as worked with him on projects, and not only is he clearly an expert in the field of metadata, he is an engaging presenter of information in anway that does not overwhelm his audience. I highly recommend buying and reading this book

Great book !

Excellent book, very concret application, you can buy it even only to use the access application !

Practical aspects of business rules

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.