BPM in 2011: IBM Says BPM + Business Rules Add Up To More Business Value 
In 2011, IBM will deepen ties between business process management (BPM) and business rules management system (BRMS) from ILOG for both WebSphere IT users and Lombardi business users. The result: More intelligent, responsive and code-free processes to drive end-to-end business value.
In 2011, IBM will deepen ties between business process management (BPM) and business rules management system (BRMS) from ILOG for both WebSphere IT users and Lombardi business users. The result: More intelligent, responsive and code-free processes to drive business value.
For more details and perspective, IDN speaks with Pierre Haren, vice president of IBM’s ILOG unit, and founder of ILOG.
“IBM will only have one business rules system and that will be JRules from ILOG,” Haren said. For IT users, JRules will be embedded into WebSphere Message Broker, WebSphere Process Server, the WebSphere ESB. For business users, JRules will be added into IBM analytics and Lombardi BPM.
“This connection between BPM and business rules has several sweet spots, and WebSphere Process Server and Lombardi are two of them,” Haren told IDN. “At both ends, we now bring BPM and rules together for heavy-duty transactions and for business-driven BPM. Linking these two [architecture] is the way to keep the CIO, the CEO and the business users happy.”
IBM’s Vision of BPM + BRMS Advantages
Haren pointed to other areas where IT and business will benefit from the convergence of BPM and BRMS. Among them:
- Enterprise-Wide Agility—Making BRMS available for BPM and WebSphere means companies can un-bundle rules from specific applications, such as SAP or Oracle. “Tying rules down inside applications like these makes it difficult and expensive to change rules, add new decision points or even update policies and processes,” Haren said.
- Rapid Iterative Updates—“Another thing I love about rules and BPM together is that they both are incremental programming,” Haren said. Unlike writing an application in Java or COBOL, the user doesn’t need a specification up front. “You can’t write good code without a good spec,” he said. “But, in BPM you can start with a high level vision, and you can incrementally add filters, decision-points and rules as you go along.”
- Embrace the Long Tail of Exceptions--“Often, when users start with BPM process, they have a sense of their orchestration, and they may also want to add some ‘kernel’ rules to add filters or ask questions about the applications or transaction,” Haren said. Combining BPM with BRMS will allow customers can take on as much detail and granularity with their exceptions or special rules, without adding complex programming, he added. “The exceptions are the long tail here, so with this approach, you can get up and running very quickly with your core process and rules, and add exceptions as you see fit.” Haren said.
- Improved Visualization, Automated Validation--For the future, IBM is working on new levels of visualization and automating rules validation. For now, IBM offers a “decision validation service” to let customers build rules cases and run/test them to see if they give the right outcomes and that KPIs are met, Haren added.
- Consolidating Departmental BPMs—As the BPM market has exploded over the past few years, Haren said IBM sees many customers asking what they should do with multiple departmental BPMs. “Customers wonder if they should have “one enterprise-wide BPM” and undertake a massive rewrite project or, if not, how they can integrate or bridge different BPMs together,:” Haren said.
As to specific product lines, Haren told IDN that IBM’s BPM + BRMS approach will improve WebSphere and Lombardi offerings:
WebSphere Process Server will add JRules to deliver more powerful choreography, better ensure the execution of complex processes, and provide companies a way to easily insert many rules-based decision points across an end-to-end process—without programming.
This is an exciting time for BPM and business rules, and we continue to push on to deliver new value to business users, IT and the company as a whole.
Pierre Haren
Vice President, ILOG
IBM
To help companies better manage multiple departmental BPMs, IBM also intends to make WebSphere Process Server a component of an enterprise BPM infrastructure backbone, Haren said. “This will be especially for enterprises that have a high need to support heavy transactional traffic or real-time activity,” and will help customers share and tie together various BPMs they have.
Lombardi BPM with JRules will allow business users to add precise exception handling and granular decision making to their business processes.
Looking it as a whole, Haren described IBM’s BPM activities in 2001 this way: “In a real way, Lombardi’s DNA is replicating itself on IBM’s BPM [offerings], and ILOG’s JRules are making all our BPM smarter BPM plus business rules will add up to be more than the sum of their parts,” Haren said.
BPM and BRMS combined provide what Haren called “a divide and conquer strategy” that can help IT and business users collaborate effectively on implementing very complex processes.
IBM’s Customer Benefits, Examples
“This is an exciting time for BPM and rules, and we continue to push on to deliver new value to business users, IT and the company as a whole,” Haren added. He shared some examples:
“Let’s say I am preparing to offer a loan to a guy, “Haren said. “Rules and BPM together lets you subdivide that process into a bunch of end-to-end decision points. And because you have these ‘sub-problems,’ you can be more precise with your decision making.”
BPM defines and manages the entire end-to-end master process, while BRMS lets users insert a rich set of decision points within those sub-problems, makes decisions from these rules, and re-introduces the outcome into the overall BPM process.
“From this point of view, BPM is the choreography of multiple processes that do something, and business rules are the way to optimize decisions at multiple decision points you might want to insert,” Haren said.
Adding BPM and BRMS lets the loan company simply and inexpensively customize decision making. The firm can define its BPM process, define as many “sub-problems” and “decision points” as they need, allow the system to adjust the rate of interest based on term or risk, and so on—all automatically or without programming, Haren said.
For another example, Haren points to a web commerce project.
Imagine a web-based electronics outlet that can receive online orders from anywhere in North America, Haren said. The business process takes the customer order, gets the credit card and delivery information, confirms the sale and sends the order, when necessary, to a supplier or a fulfillment house for shipment.
Haren said rules let the customer ask: Which supplier should I use to optimize profits and customer satisfaction? After the commerce site gets the order, a “business rules flow” powered by ILOG JRules “intelligently routes” it through a decision tree, powered by the JRules engine. Here, the BRMS can ask questions (apply rules) and choose the best supplier based on price, proximity to the customer, cost to ship and other factors, Haren said.
Once JRules has finished with its decision, the selection is re-inserted into the BPM choreography and the process continues. “The idea is that this will be all program-free, so you won’t need a sophisticated developer,” Haren said. “A business user can update the rules that govern these business decisions.”
“I’ve seen situations where customers can tackle 95% of scenarios with no humans involved, thanks to how expressive they have made their rules,” Haren said. “And, because the rules work in conjunction with BPM and SOA, I know customers who change their rules frequently, even some changes every day, without programming or without any problem.”
IBM is expected to share more details and updates on its BPM + BRMS vision April 10-13 at the IBM Impact 2011 event in Las Vegas.
