Integration with Operational Decision Manager

You can create decision services in Operational Decision Manager, and run them in Decision Runtime for z/OS, which provides rule execution options for mainframe applications.

Responsive, intelligent decision automation drives business agility. Operational Decision Manager manages decisions outside business applications to deliver more flexibility and responsiveness for ever-changing business requirements.

The ability of an operational system to handle change relates directly to the decisions that are applied by the system. Every transaction, order, customer interaction, or process depends on decisions, which are defined by external and internal conditions and requirements. Change affects the decisions that are automatically applied by business systems. For more information, see the IBM® Operational Decision Manager documentation External link opens a new window or tab.

AI technology is also available for developing and executing decision services in Operational Decision Manager. For more information, see AI integration External link opens a new window or tab.

In Operational Decision Manager, you can create decision services that contain business rules, and then run these rules on zRule Execution Server for z/OS or zRule Execution Server for z/OS on CICS® JVM server (see Decision Runtime for z/OS environments):
Diagram shows rule development and deployment with Operational Decision Management and Decision Runtime for z/OS.

You can also use AI in your solutions. You can define decision services in Decision Intelligence and add AI functionality with Machine Learning.

Setup and usage

The following activities cover the setup and usage of Operational Decision Manager with zRule Execution Server for z/OS. You must have access to Operational Decision Manager and its supporting software.

Table 1.
Activity Description Information
Installing You install the products for z/OS®® by using the System Modification Program/Extended (SMP/E) tool. The Program Directory PDF provides detailed instructions. Installing
Configuring You must configure Decision Runtime for z/OS before you can send requests to the rule engine from your applications. To set up a Decision Server execution environment, you must customize the datasets, z/OS® configuration variables, and z/OS jobs provided, and then use them to configure new environments. Configuring for Operational Decision Manager
Developing To execute business rules on z/OS®, you must design and orchestrate a rule project in Rule Designer or Decision Center, and then deploy the rules in an archive.

You must also create a client application to execute rules on zRule Execution Server for z/OS and Rule Execution Server.
Running You must start zRule Execution Server for z/OS to run decision services for client applications. Starting zRule Execution Server for z/OS to serve Operational Decision Manager requests
Tutorials Develop your technical skills with tutorials for Decision Runtime for z/OS. Tutorials installed with Decision Server Rules on a distributed platform also demonstrate some features that are applicable to the Rule Execution Server runtime on z/OS®. The Decision Server Rules tutorials are preconfigured to run on the sample server. However, the same user tasks are relevant when you deploy your rules to z/OS, and administer Rule Execution Server. Tutorials for Operational Decision Manager
Samples The Miniloan sample application demonstrates how to execute business rules on an instance of zRule Execution Server for z/OS. The application executes a set of loan eligibility rules against financial data for two borrowers. Then it returns a message that states whether the loans were approved or rejected. The Miniloan application can be executed as batch, CICS®, or IMS COBOL applications. zRule Execution Server for z/OS samples