WebSphere ILOG Rules for COBOL

Improve maintainability and visibility of decision logic in COBOL applications

IBM WebSphere ILOG Rule for COBOL allows WebSphere ILOG JRules rulesets to be generated into COBOL code for use inside COBOL applications.

Add powerful business rule management system (BRMS) functionality to existing COBOL-based applications in order to improve automated decisioning. Externalize decision logic for management in WebSphere ILOG JRules.

  • Generate COBOL source code from WebSphere ILOG JRules BRMS rule sets for compilation into an executable format
  • Create a business Object Model from COBOL copybook and generate COBOL code that incorporates rule flows, natural language rules, decision tables and decision trees.
  • Manage rules in a flexible, secure and governed system that allow decision logic to be understood by both technical and business users
  • Reuse business rules across multiple applications, systems and processes
  • Leverage Rules for COBOL and WebSphere ILOG JRules as a way to progressively modernize COBOL applications and accelerate the transition to an overall SOA strategy
  • Operating systems supported: Linux, System z

View features and benefits

ILOG Rules for COBOL Web Pages

Greatly extend existing COBOL-based applications with advanced business rule management system (BRMS) functionality for quickly deploying and updating decision logic. Externalize and manage decision code for management with WebSphere ILOG JRules, and then convert it back into COBOL for easy insertion into the applications your company depends on.

  • Manage rules in a flexible, secure and governed system that allows decision logic to be understood by both technical and business users
  • Reuse business rules across multiple applications, systems and processes
  • Leverage Rules for COBOL and WebSphere ILOG JRules to progressively modernize COBOL applications and accelerate transition to an SOA
  • Generate COBOL subprograms from WebSphere ILOG JRules rulesets for use in existing COBOL-based applications
  • Fully supports IBM’s zOS operating system

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Overview

The WebSphere ILOG business rule management system (BRMS) product line provides a comprehensive set of capabilities that enable Business and IT functions within the organization to work together collaboratively for authoring, maintaining and deploying decision logic that is critical to business systems.

Rules for COBOL is ideal for companies that deploy business rules in COBOL, but want to benefit from the latest BRMS technology. The rules in a COBOL application can be incrementally migrated to a central business rule repository for external management, even directly by business users, and still be executed in COBOL code.

Benefits of Rules for COBOL:

  • Makes decision logic easily accessible and re-useable across the organization.
    • Rules are stored and managed in a centralized repository, with comprehensive capabilities for querying and reporting on rules and associated metadata.
    • Rules can be defined in a customizable business vocabulary using a variety of rule metaphors, including decision tables, text-based rules and rule flows (combining multiple rulesets in a defined execution sequence).
    • Tools and environments are designed specifically for the unique needs of different stakeholders involved in rule management—Line of Business personnel, Business Analysts, Systems Developers, and IT Operations.
  • Reduces the amount of time, effort and cost required to develop and maintain applications by separating business decision logic from core application code. By managing rules outside of COBOL apps, the code base becomes more stable and less likely to be affected by change.
  • Rules can be easily shared across business applications, ensuring consistency in the implementation of business policies across the organization’s applications and systems.
  • Provides an initial step in legacy modernization efforts. With Rules for COBOL, rules managed in the BRMS can be generated as COBOL code and inserted directly within the application. Later, the inserted decision logic code can be replaced with a call to the BRMS rule engine, utilizing the exact same rules managed in the BRMS repository and providing a straight-forward transition path.

New Features in Rules for COBOL

The v7.0x releases of Rules for COBOL provide a number of new and improved features:

  • New optimized code generation for rule flows and decision tables, along with additional methods for handling numeric computations in COBOL copybooks.

  • Rules for COBOL now supports business object model (BOM) generation and COBOL code to BOM mapping for Level 88 data items. It also supports Java executable object model (XOM) method generation for Level 88 data items, with some limitations.

  • Rules for COBOL now supports all data types for local variables: primitive, String , Date, Class and Collector type. And references to external files can also be included in the generated COBOL code.

  • There is a new CICS Usage option which generates a wrapper program to facilitate integration with existing CICS applications.

WebSphere ILOG Rules for COBOL V7.1 improves the ability to define, maintain, and govern decision logic used in COBOL-based applications.

  • Rules for COBOL generates Enterprise COBOL.

  • Rules for COBOL now provides reporting of errors incurred during rule authoring and suggestions for resolution of the errors.

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WebSphere ILOG Rules for COBOL

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