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JBoss Drools Business Rules

JBoss Drools is a business rules management system that integrates rules, workflow, and event processing. It provides a rules engine to execute business logic based on data from various sources. Key components include the Guvnor rules editor, Drools runtime, and fact model. Rules use a "when-then" format to trigger actions based on conditions being true. The system allows capturing data, applying business rules, and storing or forwarding information.

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Srinivas Kadiyala
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200 views

JBoss Drools Business Rules

JBoss Drools is a business rules management system that integrates rules, workflow, and event processing. It provides a rules engine to execute business logic based on data from various sources. Key components include the Guvnor rules editor, Drools runtime, and fact model. Rules use a "when-then" format to trigger actions based on conditions being true. The system allows capturing data, applying business rules, and storing or forwarding information.

Uploaded by

Srinivas Kadiyala
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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JBoss Drools Business Rules:

Current Version 6.2


Drools Engine brings together Rules, Workflow, Event Processing
along with Enterprise Governance System Business Logic
Integration Platform
Commercial Version available from Red Hat JBoss BRMS.
JBoss Rules (also known as Drools) enables anybody with basic IT
skills and an understanding of the business to turn statements
such as these into running computer code.
You will be able to create rules that trigger actions and decisions,
based on data that comes from a variety of sources and
departments right across your business.
Tools:
Java Programming Language
BRMS/Guvnor & JBoss App Server - JBoss App Server to provide a
web-based rules editor aimed at business users.
Maven - a build tool that takes the various Java scripts (source) and
transforms them into a package that we can deploy on a web
server.
Eclipse and the Drools plug-in to edit the Java files that we will use
for transporting information around the system.
Rules are 'when something is present, then do this'. And not just
single rules, but many of them.
Ruleflow and Workflow allow you to group your rules and decide
which should fire first.
Rules allow you to make many individual statements of what you
know to be true and then let the computer decide if these rules
apply (or not) to the current situation.
We don't specify any order for our rules. All of them, one of them,
or none of them might apply in a given situation.
"When (something is true) then (do this)" format.
Business Rule Definition:
When 'something' is true, Then do 'this'.
The key reason for using 'when' is to underline that business rules
will 'fire' whenever the condition is true. Traditional 'if' statements

will only fire if we happen to be at that step in the process at the


time.

The following figure shows sample business rules for a chocolate


factory:

The figure shows the sample rules that I came up with. The first
three columns are the 'when' part of our business rule or the LeftHand Side (LHS). The last (fourth column) is the 'then' part, also
known as the Right-Hand Side (RHS).
For example, the first record in the table says:
When the Finance department sees that we've sold more than
30,000 Chocolate Crunchie bars, then they should Order more
chocolate.
In general, these business systems do three things:
1. Capture information, for example, via a web interface
(presentation layer).
2. Apply business knowledge to this information (business layer).
3. Store or forward this information (service or data layer).
There is no clearly delineated place to put the business logic, A
rule engine can solve these problemsat least to some extent.
A rule engine allows us to 'run' these business rules into the rest of
our bigger computer system so that we can get our values from a
web page, save the results into a database, or anything else we
need to do with our information.
Rule engine - a place in which we can evaluate our business rules.

Rule engines allow you to say "what to do", not "how to do it".
Logic at Rules Engine and data at Database
Speed and scalability - Rule engines work based on the Rete
algorithm proven to be faster and more scalable than most
traditional hand coded 'ifthen' solutions..
Auditing Rules System provide an explanation facility allowing
you to audit how and why a particular decision was made.
Example: When Mail Subject contains JBoss Rules -> Move
Message to Folder Rules

JBoss is a division of Red Hat. JBoss and Drools is open source.


Drools or JBoss Rules (Latest Name)
Drools is an advanced rule engine. It allows you to state things
that you know to be correct
Links:
Product Home Page - http://www.jboss.com/products/rules
Community Home Page - http://www.jboss.org/drools/
Wiki - http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/JBossRules
Mailing Lists - http://www.jboss.org/drools/lists.html
Bugs and Feature Requests http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBRULES

How do I write the rules


1. Business Rules Management System (BRMS) from Drools,
which is called Guvnor.
2. simple text editor such as Notepad
3. Microsoft Excel
4. Drools IDE

BRMS (Guvnor)
BRMS is a web page allows you to enter your knowledge as
business rules via a web page.
This web-based application can also be used to manage other
things such as deployment, testing, and processes.
BRMS Provides:
Team editing
Version management of rules and related assets
Asset management
A deployment mechanism
Security (Login)
Import and export of data
Parts of the solution
Rules editor
This is the choice of BRMS, IDE, Decision Table, or plain text file. All
produce a similar underlying rule language. The mechanism for
deploying these rules (RuleAgent or some other equivalent) is
similar.
Rules compiler
To translate the near-English rules language into something the
rules engine can understandthis is what the compiler does.
Runtime
As the information flows through your system, something has to be
applied to the (compiled) rules. This is where the Drools runtime
comes in.
Fact model
We have a working system with information flowing from the Web,
modified by the rules, and then saved in the database. The

description of the information we need and the format it is stored


in is known as the fact model.
Rule repository
Rules are important and rule repository solves these problems by
saving the rules.

Guided rules by Guvnor


This is a guided editor that makes intelligent suggestions to help
you write your rules. With this editor you won't be typing any text,
but using dropdowns and clicking on icons to create business rules.

The key features of the lefthand side of this screen are:

Buttons at the top left to Save changes, Copy, and Archive


the rule
The When and Then sections of the business rules on the
upper-left and

middle left
Three green '+' icons next to the When, Then, and Options
sections to add more constraints or consequences
Multiple '-' icons (next to the textboxes) allowing you to
delete existing constraints or consequences
Options that describe the rule; for example, is it part of a
process flow, is it enabled, and the date that it is effective
from
Buttons (near the bottom), used to view the source (View
source) and
validate the rule (Validate)
A space (at the bottom of the screen) to allow (optional)
information about the rule to be specified

On the righthand side of the screen, you will find the following
features:

Options on the upper-right,used to change the Status and


Categories
Notes on the package to which the rule belongs
Version history and other metadata about the rule, such as
who created it
and when

The View Source button allows you to see (but not edit) the rule
that is created for you.
Technical rules
Note that this text-based rule follows the same "whenthen"
format.
when
$driver : Driver ( driverID : id )
$supple : SupplementalInfo ( driverId == driverID,
glassCoverage == true)
then
$driver.updateInsuranceFactor( 1.05 );
System.out.println("Driver wants glass coverage: " +
$driver.getInsuranceFactor());
In plain English:
When

There is a Driver
And that Driver has requested glass coverage
Then
Update the driver's insurance factor
Print a message saying that the driver wants coverage
Creating a new rule
This menu allows you to create new technical and business rules
It also allows you to create DSL-based rules (a way of writing nearEnglish business rules), Decision Tables (an Excel-like format for
business rules), and test scenarios (to make sure that your rules
work the way you intend them to).

Packages
Packages are like folders. They are a way of organising rules and
assets. The difference between packages and directories comes at
deployment time, when everything in one package gets deployed
at the same time. Opening the package (org | acme | insurance |
base) shows you all of the assets available in the package. Most of
these concepts (business rules, technical rules, DSL, models, rule
flows, and test scenarios) are familiar, but there are two new
items: Functions and Enumerations. We might want to call
Functions, which are useful for calculations and the like, from the
rules. Enumerations are lists of values that we can use in our rules.

select the main package (base), you will be able to see a summary
of the package details.

Some of the features on the package details screen (from top to


bottom) are:
The buttons Copy, Rename, and Archive at the top of the screen,
used to to copy, rename, and archive (delete but save a copy)
respectively. Next, just below the Configuration heading are the
statements that import the fact model into the package. These are
normally generated automatically when we add the (Java) fact

model. An optional Description of the package. A Save and validate


configuration button, used to to save (and validate) the
configuration. A Build package button, used to to build the package
and put it into a deployable condition (or let you know of any
problems). A Show package source button, used to show the
package source (for example, the technical rules language that has
been written by Guvnor on your behalf). This shows the entire
package (including imports and functions), and not just single
rules.

Deployment
It gets your rules and assets from the Guvnor editor and puts them
into the production systems.
The Deployment tab allows you to control when your rules are
released to the end users. It also allows you to view previous
deployments.

The list of available snapshots comes from the packages built by


the Build package button under the Package tab.

In addition to the Delete and Copy buttons, there is a web link


(URL).
You can click on it here to download the package (if you wish to
copy and deploy it manually to the target system).
Drools provides a component (called the RuleAgent) that we can
deploy into our production system. Drools provides a component
(called the RuleAgent) that we can deploy into our production
system. The RuleAgent can check for updates to the package (via
the URL) and deploy them to production automatically.

QAQuality Analysis Screen


The test scenario screen allows us to run all of the tests in our
package simultaneously, which is a useful sanity check for our
rules, before deploying them.

Writing the rule Hello World Example

In Guvnor, select the Rules tab, click on the Create new dropdown,
and then select New DRL (technical rule). A new screen will appear.

We enter a name (HelloWorldRule), a category (that can be created


using the Admin tab we saw earlier), and use the defaultPackage
and (optionally) enter a description of the rule.

Clicking on OK will take us to the (technical) rule editor, similar to


the one we saw on our tour of the Guvnor (although at this point
the rule is blank). In the main part of the screen (the blank part)
enter the following text:
rule "Hello World"

when
eval(true)
then
System.out.println("Hello world");
end

The important thing about this rule is the when eval(true)


statement. This means that the rule will always try to fire and carry
out the then part that is, print the 'Hello World' message.
Next, save the changes by clicking on the Save changes button.
You should be asked for an optional 'check in' comment after
clicking this button.
You've written your first business rule!

Firing the rule


Remember that with rules, you say 'do this when this is true' and
leave the rule engine to carry out that instruction when it finds
itself in that scenario.
Test scenario in Guvnor
Packages tab. Select Packages | Create new | New test scenario

Enter a Name, Package, Initial description and then press OK. The
scenario-editing screen will then be displayed.

This screen has three green '+' signs that we use to set up our
scenario. From top to bottom these are:
GIVEN allows us to set our inputs (that is, create a scenario in
which we know a business rule will fire)
EXPECT allows us to inspect the output after the rule has fired,
to make sure that it has worked correctly
globals allows us to pass in environmental variables that the
rule may need

All we have to do is click the Run scenario button. When we do


this, two things will happen:
1. We will see a message appear on the web page1 rules
fired in 0ms. Pressing the Show rules fired next to this
message shows that the 'Hello World' rule was activated.
2. We will see a 'Hello World' message in the web server
(JBoss) log, similar to
the following:

In the first part we created a rule that essentially said:


rule "Hello World"
when
Anytime the rules are run
then
Print a message to the console ("Hello world");
end

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