Step 3: Deploying the managed rule project to the embedded runtime

For deployment purposes, a ruleset is packaged as a RuleApp, an archive file that is used to contain the rules and associated metadata and resources. RuleApp deployment is the most common way to deploy or update rules.

Rule projects contain references to a Java or XSD execution object model (XOM). When a ruleset archive is extracted from a rule project, it contains only the XSD (dynamic) XOM.

The XOM file is not required for a RuleApp that uses a Java XOM because the XOM can be automatically inferred from the classes available in the class path of your application. You must independently deploy the Java XOM objects that rules use.

To run an application that uses a Java XOM, you must deploy your RuleApp and Java code in two separate steps. You deploy your application by using standard tools such as an IDE, Ant scripts, or an application server console. You can deploy rulesets by using Rule Designer, Decision Center, the Rule Execution Server console, or Ant tasks.

To support this approach, you need to define a RuleApp that matches the runtime characteristics of your embedded rule project. You must define the following characteristics, which are used by the host application and run time to identify the ruleset on the Rule Execution Server:

• RuleApp: name, major version, and minor version
• Ruleset: name, major version, and minor version

The following list shows different ways to deploy rule projects: