Before you start

Find out what you need to know before you start the tutorial.

Note: This tutorial is available only in American English. The rule project containing the rules to import in this tutorial is only provided in the en_US locale. If en_US is not your default locale, you can use the samples console shortcut to change the locale. From the Start menu, click All Programs > IBM > <package_group> > Sample Server > Samples Console (en_US).

The default package group is Operational Decision Manager 8.10.5.

A fictitious loan company wants to use business rules to validate loan applications and execute them in either a Java™ environment, or use a COBOL application running on z/OS®.

The company uses business rules to define customer eligibility for loan applications. The rule projects that the company currently uses contain BOMs based on a Java XOM. They deploy the rules to Rule Execution Server on WebSphere® Application Server for z/OS to execute in a Java environment.

The company now wants to share the Java rule projects with COBOL applications running on z/OS, and manage the changes made to these rules. To share rules with COBOL applications, they must add the necessary COBOL structures to the BOM and generate a COBOL copybook. With these structures in the rule project, the company deploys the RuleApps to zRule Execution Server for z/OS so that the COBOL application can call the rulesets and execute the rules.

What you will learn

In this tutorial, you develop the following skills:

  • Importing a Java-based rule project into your workspace
  • Enabling the business object model (BOM) for COBOL copybook generation
  • Generating a COBOL copybook from the BOM
  • Customizing the default Java to COBOL mapping
  • Deploying your rules for rule execution in a COBOL application on z/OS.

Time required

This tutorial should take approximately 30 minutes to finish.

Software requirements

You must have Rule Designer installed on Windows or Linux®. This tutorial uses Rule Designer on Windows. You must also have an instance of zRule Execution Server for z/OS installed and configured on z/OS.

All the files for this tutorial are contained in the following directory: <InstallDir>/studio/tutorials/cobol/bomstartrez, where <InstallDir> is the zRule Execution Server for z/OS installation directory. This tutorial provides a sample rule project named SharingZMiniloan for you to use. The rule project is stored in the following directory: /studio/tutorials/cobol/bomstartrez/start.

What you need to know

To follow this tutorial, you must be familiar with certain aspects that relate to your installation:
  • You must have a basic understanding of the Enterprise COBOL programming language, know how to make calls from a COBOL program, and know how to build a COBOL application.
  • You must know where to deploy your RuleApps. Your zRule Execution Server for z/OS system administrator has configured the location where your RuleApps and XOMs must be deployed, either on the file system or in a DB2® database. If you do not know the location, contact your system administrator.
  • You must also be familiar with Rule Designer and understand some basic Business Rule Management System (BRMS) terms and concepts such as:
    • Execution object model (XOM)
    • Business object model (BOM)
    • RuleApp
    • RuleApp archive
    • Ruleset
    • Decision operation

You can find these terms in the Glossary.

If you want to share rules between Java and COBOL applications, it is important to understand how Java structures map to COBOL structures, and any limitations that apply. For more information, see Mapping Java data types to COBOL data structures and Handling data type differences between Java and COBOL in the distributed platform part of this product documentation.

Directory structure

All the files for this tutorial are contained in the following directory: <InstallDir>/studio/tutorials/cobol/bomstartresz, where <InstallDir> is the Decision Server installation directory.

This tutorial provides a sample rule project named SharingZMiniloan for you to use. The rule project is stored in the following directory:

  • <InstallDir>/studio/tutorials/cobol/bomstartresz/start.