Retrieving business rules at run time from an IBM Operational Decision Manager repository
Use a configurable service to retrieve business rules that are created in IBM® Operational Decision Manager.
Before you begin
- Import a rule application archive file from IBM Operational Decision Manager by following the instructions in Importing a rule application archive file.
- Associate the imported business rules with a DecisionService node by following the instructions in Processing messages with a decision service.
About this task
To use rules that are written in IBM Operational Decision Manager to process messages in IBM Integration Bus, you first import a rule application archive into the IBM Integration Toolkit. At run time, you can retrieve those business rules directly from an external IBM Operational Decision Manager repository or from a local application, library, or integration project. For example, you can use the local copy of the business rules for testing, then later switch to use the external repository copy. The rules in the external repository can be updated independently of the local copy of the rules by business users with IBM Operational Decision Manager tools.
A configurable service (DecisionServiceRepository) is provided for you to connect to the external repository at run time. You can update the default DecisionServiceRepository configurable service only. You cannot create multiple DecisionServiceRepository configurable services.
When you connect to the external repository, you can connect to two components: a database repository and a management server. The database repository contains the definitions for the rule applications and rule sets that are named in the decision service. When you configure the DecisionServiceRepository configurable service, you must provide connection details for the database repository. (For information, see Configurable services properties.) The management server is used to update and monitor the repository. Configure the connection to this management server if you want the integration servers to receive updates about changes to the rule applications in the repository.
To configure the connection details for the database repository, you create a JDBCProviders configurable service with the properties to define the JDBC connection. You then set the JDBCProviderName property of the DecisionServiceRepository configurable service to the name of the JDBCProviders configurable service. The JDBCProviders configurable service provides the details for a connection; however, the integration servers do not establish a JDBC connection directly. Therefore, no connection pool is created for this definition.
Optionally, you can use the DecisionServiceRepository configurable service to register with the Rule Execution Server management console. If the management console is configured for TCP/IP notifications, the integration servers can receive update notifications when the contents of rule applications change. You can also specify when the configurable service definition is used.
To create the required configurable services, and retrieve rule sets from an IBM Operational Decision Manager repository, complete the following steps.