Welcome to the Twin Cities BizTalk User Group

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Welcome to the Twin Cities BizTalk User Group

• July 2006

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Implementing a BizTalk Rule Engine Solution.
Tips, Tricks Best Practices

• Balaji Thiagarajan
• ITRGroup, Inc
• www.itrgroupinc.com

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This event is sponsored byITR Group, Inc
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Introduce you to the group
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About me

• Working on BizTalk since the BizTalk 2000 days
• MCP in BizTalk since August 2002
• Worked for Microsoft Consulting Services, India.
• Currently working as a BizTalk Consultant for
  ITRGroup, Inc.

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Agenda

• Overview of BizTalk Rules Engine(BRE)
• Features
• Building Rules
• Architecture
• Rules Orchestration
• Q A

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BRE Overview

• What are Rules?
• Rules are
• Declarative statements for capturing changing
  business policies
• Represented as IF ltCondition(s)gt THEN
  ltAction(s)gt
• Logically grouped into policies
• Rules allow users to
• Define own business policies without coding
• Change business policies in real time without
  rebuilding/redeploying applications

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BRE Overview

• BizTalk Rules in a Nutshell
• Lightweight .Net engine
• Host-agnostic for in-process scenarios
• Integrated with BizTalk Server
• Powerful Framework Tools
• Supports Developers, IT Admin and IW
• Complete API for design execution
• Rich Modeling Capabilities
• Data Sources .Net Objects, XML, DB
• Logical expressions
• Enterprise-Ready
• Security, Performance, Versioning

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BRE Overview

• Rules Tools - Development
• Business Rule Composer
• Bind Vocabularies
• Build test policies
• Deploy Policies
• Visual Studio.NET
• OD Integrate policies processes
• Build supporting code
• Fact Retrievers long term facts
• Custom operations

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BRE Overview

• Rules Tools Admin/Management
• Rule Engine Deployment Wizard
• Deploy policies
• Export/Import policies vocabularies
• HAT
• Tracking configuration
• Policy execution monitoring

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Demo 1

• Automated Loan Processing

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Agenda

• Overview of BizTalk Rules Engine(BRE)
• Features
• Building Rules
• Architecture
• Rules Orchestration
• Q A

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Features

• Design Time
• Rich built-in library that includes
• Temporal, relational predicates
• Support for ranges and regular expressions
• Arithmetic operations
• Engine execution control functions
• Support for complex logical expressions(AND / OR
  / NOT)
• User-defined predicates/functions/actions
• Policy testing

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Features

• Run Time
• Application integration via Policy object
• Support for long-term (semi-static) short-term
  (dynamic) facts
• Performance optimizations
• Forward Chaining Inference Mechanism
• Finds all true statements given knowledge base
  and a new set of facts
• Execution tracking

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Agenda

• Overview of BizTalk Rules Engine(BRE)
• Features
• Building Rules
• Architecture
• Rules Orchestration
• Q A

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Building Rules

• .Net Objects
• Drag and drop public members
• Actions
• Predicates
• Arguments
• Assert .Net Instances
• IF MyClass.A 5
• THEN MyClass.B()

MyClass
Engine
Assert
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Building Rules

• Data Connection
• Perform dynamic queries on a DB
• DataConnection(DataSetName,TableName,
• SqlConnection,SqlTransaction)

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Building Rules

• Data Connection - Retrieve

IF Table.CustType Residential AND
Table.Balance gt 1000 THEN .
SELECT FROM Table WHERE CustType
Residential and Balance gt 1000
TDR
Engine
TDR
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Building Rules

• Data Connection - Update

IF Table.CustType Residential AND
Table.Balance gt 1000 THEN Table.Status Over
Limit
SELECT FROM Table WHERE CustType
Residential and Balance gt 1000
Modify
Call DC.Update() and commit the SQL Transaction
TDR
Engine
TDR
Modify
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Building Rules

• TypedDataTable
• Wrapper class on ADO.NET DataTable
• Rules built against DB tables, using Database
  binding type field
• Asserts individual TypedDataRows
• Note If you assert a DataTable without the
  TypedDataTable wrapper it is treated as a
  standard .NET object

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Demo 2

• Automated Loan Processing with DB

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Building Rules

• TypedXmlDocument

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Building Rules

• TypedXmlDocument

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Building Rules

• TypedXmlDocument
• IF orderline.quantity gt 5
• THEN orderline.discount 10

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Building Rules

• TypedXmlDocument
• Objects are created based on XPath selectors
  Xpath Field represents object property
• Other points
• Adding nodes
• XPath editing

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Building RulesForward Chaining

• Policy
• Rule 1
• If A.amount gt 0
• Then B.total A.amount
• Rule 2
• If B.total gt 50 lt 100
• Then B.discount 10
• Rule 3
• If B.total gt 100
• Then B.discount 15
• A.Amount 25
• B.Total 80

• Rule Engine Agenda
• B.Total B.total A.amount
• B.Discount 10

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Building RulesForward Chaining

• Policy
• Rule 1
• If A.amount gt 0
• Then B.total A.amount
• Rule 2
• If B.total gt 50 lt 100
• Then B.discount 10
• Rule 3
• If B.total gt 100
• Then B.discount 15
• A.Amount 25
• B.Total 80 105

• Rule Engine Agenda
• B.Total B.total A.amount
• B.Discount 10
• B.Discount 15
• B.Discount 15

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Building Rules

• Engine Control Functions
• Assert
• Add facts to working memory
• Retracts
• Remove facts from working memory
• RetractByType
• Remove all instances of the specified type
• Update
• Instruct engine to reevaluate relevant
  facts/conditions

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Building Rules

• Engine Control Functions
• CreateObject
• Exposed as constructors in Composer
• Halt
• Stop engine processing
• Clear
• Clear facts from memory
• Clear actions from agenda
• Executor
• Handle to the rule engine instance

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Agenda

• Overview of BizTalk Rules Engine(BRE)
• Features
• Building Rules
• Architecture
• Rules Orchestration
• Q A

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Architecture

• Schematic

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Architecture

• Policy Instantiation Get RE Instance

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Architecture

• Policy Instantiation Execute Engine

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Architecture

• Policy Instantiation Get RE Instance

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Demo 3

• Policy Testing

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Agenda

• Overview of BizTalk Rules Engine(BRE)
• Features
• Building Rules
• Architecture
• Rules Orchestration
• Q A

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Rules and Orchestration

• Patterns Illustrated

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Rules and Orchestration

• Patterns Illustrated

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Q A