Hi,

I'm evaluating BRMS's for a new project at work.

JBoss Rules today swung into pole position however I am unclear on a number of features. I wonder whether this user-group can help?

I list a number of aspects I "think" are currently missing in JBoss Rules together with my thoughts: If anybody can clarify the position, provide alternatives or help push JBoss Rules I'd be pleased to hear!

• We require ruleflow (where rules run sequentially; like "identify all machines X" then "calculate prices" - not perhaps a good illustration as this could be written as one rule "calculate all prices using machine XXX"!!!). Ideally "dynamic" ruleflow is required too - where the next rule in a sequence is determined by the outcome of a preceding rule (I have seen dynamic achieved with "trigger" Facts asserted as the RHS of rules however our "Business Users" cannot be expected to author rules following this design pattern. I have also seen static implemented with salience). Is ruleflow (static or dynamic) part of 3.2 - otherwise we'll need to categorise rules having different types fired throughout a "coded" process in Java.


• A J2EE runtime to provide scalability of the RETE engine. We need to have the engine being shared across sessions on a web-server. What experiences have others had? Do you simply provide a working memory instance per session (how does this scale horizontally?). I also read that an Application Server runtime would be part of 3.2, is this true?


• A rule authoring environment for end-users. I read on Mark Proctor's blogg that this is in development but is it set for inclusion in 3.2 and does it handle DSL too; otherwise we'd have to write out own?

With kind regards,

Michael Anstis
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