Fair, Isaac has released Blaze Advisor 4.5. Blaze Advisor is a rules management platform, aimed at separating business rules from application code. v4.5 adds faster batch processing options, easier business-level maintenance using decision tables, compliancy with JSR 94 (java rules engine interfaces)and UI enhancements.

Check out Blaze Advisor. Read the press release.

For a bit of historic trivia, privately held Blaze Software was acquired by Brokat Technologies (who at the same time acquired Gemstone Inc..) in July, 2000. HNC Software purchased the Blaze Advisor business unit from Brokat Technologies in August 2001. Gemstone was also sold. HNC later merged with Fair, Isaac in August 2002.

JSR 94 - the Java Rules Engine API - sounds great, but since the reference implementation is not free (neither as in beer nor speech) I can't imagine it will catch on. As a result, I can't imagine that Blaze Advisor or any other product in this space is really going to benefit from the fact that it is based on a standard. Not only can I not afford Blaze, I can't afford the cheap system that would let me get started in the hopes that I could upgrade to Blaze later.

JSR 94 also seems very incomplete.

I had much higher hopes for what it defined. It is a start that they realize that a rules engine standard is needed, but i think there is much work to be done.

I was hoping for more on the rule syntax language, like BRML

You are right at this point the standard ads little benefit without a free refrence implementation.

I think JESS is free for educational use, which is good, but doesn't help for starting real projects with a rules engine.

The other Rules Engines that I know of are (not sure how many will comply with JSR94)


Haley
QuickRules
BlueFish
CommonRules
iLog Jrules
JESS
drools

Gene,
I beg to differ. I have not completely read this JSR but the idea of a standard interface to Rules Engines is something I'd use. Right now every rules server has a proprietary interface. Sure does make porting an app between them hard.

I've done (and am currently doing) J2EE projects with Blaze. A big concern by the business is "what if we want to change rules servers later on?" A J2EE app that uses the Java Rules Engine API would make it much easier to do this.

About the price, $35K/cpu isn't cheap. But then again neither is WebLogic Integration or Oracle and plenty of businesses use them. The idea that I can change the rules for an application without code changes and hot-deploy them without bringing the app down is quite appealing for highly available enterprise systems. Given the right application, Blaze is a good value.

-ryan

Rulesharp also conforms to java jsr-94. It also has an optional back door that is much simpler then the jsr-94 i.e: RulesharpAPI.executeRule(String ruleName, Object input, Object serviceProvider, String transactionID); that's all, very simple and so is the rest of the engine. jrules , blaze , haley , jess , etc are complicated and expensive. have a look at www.rulesharp.com you will only know if you shop or research(as the technical term) randy

Hi All, Is there a possibility of using Struts framework for rich UI with Blaze's RMA ? Should I use the option Tools -> Options -> Extension -> Add Active IDE Extension, add the struts.jar file here and start including folder like war, WEB-INF in my Blaze project and incorporate struts into the project ?