First a burger and then BRUG (Business Rules User Group)

This afternoon I grabbed a quick burger and headed off to BRUG (Business Rules User Group). The BRUG provides a setting for business and technical staff to share ideas and learn more about business rule and inference engine technologies, projects, and initiatives. It is also a great environment for getting to know one another and sharing our passion for business rules and related matters.

Today, Michael Krouze, CTO for Artemis Alliance, kicked off the meeting with a presentation on the basics of BREs (Business Rules Engines). The presentation was entitled "Demystifying Business Rules Engines: A Non-Technical Explanation of how BREs Work and Why They’re So Cool." It was a high-level presentation covering the basics. He discussed terms like backward chaining, forward chaining, RETE, etc. and I will share some of his insights in upcoming posts.

After Krouze's presentation, Equifax, a leading information services provider, discussed its implementation of ILOG (a project called InterConnect). The presentation included a testimonial from Fingerhut executives who spoke about the strategic benefits of an enterprise decisioning platform based on a business rules-based foundation.

The BRE (Business Rule Engine) is one of the platforms Enabling Technologies (my team) is responsible for providing to our business. Business rules management systems help our organization track and enforce the rules that make our business run--while keeping us on the right side of the law (and at the same time helping us sell our products and services). More on BREs to come.