Forum Discussion
integration Blaze Rules application
integration Blaze Rules application
Hi there,
I am currently working on Blaze Rules Advisor 6.9. We are developing the BOM using java. We need to integrate Blaze Rules java application with the external apps and our choice to deploy it was in a web-service mode. As part of invoking the Rules web service we would need to pull some data from the database and post invocation need to persist the output of the Rules web service to the database.
I am thinking on the lines of having this ancillary activities for the rules service embedded within Blaze rather than erecting another app for trivial tasks like data lookup for input and persisting output. So accordingly we would have a java function call to wrap the Rules Engine service (now the rules functionality would remain as a core java component) and carry out the necessary tasks.
Then we deploy the java function wrapper as web service.
Please let me know your thoughts on the same.
Thanks,
Sushant
4 Replies
Hi,
I would actually urge you to keep integration out of your rule service. Embedding for example data lookup and persistence in your rule service makes the service harder to test, and it also makes it harder to tune your rules.
You should also consider the fact that BA is not a transactional resource, which means that you are solely responsible for making reads (at the start of the service invocation) and writes (at the end) part of the same transaction. Obviously not impossible, but why fight the technology?
Pass all the data you need into your rule service, and return any and all results. That way you are more easily integrated into other solutions. In your first version you can handle data lookup/persistence in the Java web service wrapper that you create. That way it will be part of your service, but not your rule service.
Regards,
Jostein
Thanks Jostein.
I am new to the Business Rules arena. In general what is the popular, flexible or best-practice mode for deploying a Rules Service developed in Blaze Advisor like deploy it inline as java component (bundled jar file approach) or deploy it as stand-alone service (SOAP based web-service or EJB).
Our goal is to empower the business users with simplicity and flexibility in maintaining the rules with minimal IT involvement in order to increase the overall speed to market. With this in mind what would be the most hassle free deployment approach to adopt.
Let me know your thoughts.
Regards,
Sushant
I guess that would depend on the rest of your architecture, and whether you use the deployment manager or precompiled rules projects.
If you use the deployment manager, it really doesn't matter - the deployment manager will update the rules service continuously (as they change). If you use precompiled adb files, you might not want to redeploy your entire application with each rules update. That would speak against going for an embedded/inline Java deployment. In that case, a web service would be easier simply because it would be a smaller unit of change.
On the other hand, you can combine those practices: I have an application that uses an inline deployment (C#) with precompiled rules (adb-files), that still updates rules dynamically using a deployment manager, so everything is basically possible.
The most important thing is to consider your options and read a little about them before you decide, and you are doing that now You should also check out the "Online documentation" that you find on the help menu in Blaze Advisor. A lot of good tips there!
Regards,
Jostein
Hi I am Debraj, existing project with old version blaze advisor where many files like .adv,.dbcp,.flow,.jcp,.rb are there.
Now I have to upgrade this existing project with new version of blaze advisor 7.4.
Please help me to do that step by step.
Regards
Debraj Dutta
