About this Course

This 5-day instructor-led course introduces developers to IBM WebSphere Operational Decision Management V8. In this course, you learn the concepts and skills that you need to design, develop, and integrate a business rule solution with WebSphere Operational Decision Management.

The course begins with an overview of Operational Decision Management, which is composed of two main environments: IBM WebSphere Decision Server for technical users, and IBM WebSphere Decision Center for business users. The course outlines the collaboration between development and business teams during project development. Through instructor-led presentations and hands-on lab exercises, you learn about the core features of IBM WebSphere Decision Server, which is the primary working environment for developers. You design a business rule application, and work with the object models that are required to author and execute rule artifacts. You also get experience with rule execution and the rule engine API so that you can integrate rule artifacts for execution within an enterprise environment.

In addition, you become familiar with rule authoring so that you can support business users to set up and customize the authoring, validation, and management environments. You learn how to identify governance issues and use Operational Decision Management features to support decision governance.

The lab environment for this course uses the Windows XP platform.

Audience Profile

This course is designed for application developers.

At Course Completion

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

• Describe the benefits of implementing an Operational Decision Management solution
• Identify the key user roles that are involved in designing and developing an Operational Decision Management solution, and the tasks that are associated with each role
• Describe the development process of building a business rule application and the collaboration between the business and development teams
• Set up the Business Object Model (BOM) and vocabulary for rule authoring
• Create the Execution Object Model (XOM) that enables rule execution
• Orchestrate rule execution through ruleflows
• Author the rule artifacts to implement business policies
• Search and query rule artifacts for analysis and review
• Debug business rule applications to ensure that the implemented business logic is error-free
• Enable business rule management in Decision Center for business users
• Set up and customize the testing environment for business users
• Integrate developed rule artifacts for execution within an enterprise environment
• Build efficient and easy-to-maintain business rule client applications
• Explain governance issues and identify Operational Decision Management features that support decision governance and lifecycle management

Prerequisites

You should have:

• Experience with the Java programming language
• Experience with Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE)
• Knowledge of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE)
• Basic knowledge of Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Course Outline

1. Course introduction
2. Introducing IBM WebSphere Operational Decision Management V8
3. Operational Decision Management: Business rules
4. Exercise: Operational Decision Management in action
5. Programming with business rules
6. Exercise: Setting up rule applications
7. Developing Business Object Models
8. Exercise: Working with the BOM
9. Orchestrating rule execution
10. Exercise: Working with ruleset parameters, ruleset variables, and rule packages
11. Exercise: Working with ruleflows
12. Exercise: Creating ruleset archives
13. Authoring rules
14. Exercise: Exploring action rules
15. Exercise: Authoring action rules
16. Exercise: Authoring decision tables and decision trees
17. Enhancing the rule authoring experience
18. Exercise: Managing XOM and BOM updates
19. Exercise: Working with action rule templates
20. Exercise: Working with static domains
21. Exercise: Creating dynamic domains with Microsoft Excel
22. Searching and querying rules
23. Exercise: Searching and querying rule projects
24. Debugging rules
25. Exercise: Executing rules locally
26. Exercise: Debugging a ruleset
27. Enabling business rule management
28. Exercise: Enabling business rule management
29. Exercise: Synchronizing dynamic domains
30. Enabling tests and simulations
31. Exercise: Enabling tests and simulations
32. Deploying rules and XOMs
33. Exercise: Deploying rules and XOMs
34. Executing rules with Rule Execution Server
35. Exercise: Exploring the Rule Execution Server Console
36. Exercise: Executing rules with Rule Execution Server in Java SE
37. Exercise: Executing rules with Rule Execution Server in Java EE
38. Exercise: Executing rules as an HTDS web service
39. Auditing and monitoring ruleset execution
40. Exercise: Auditing ruleset execution
41. Exercise: Testing execution of deployed rulesets
42. Introducing decision governance
43. Exercise: Applying decision governance in Decision Center
44. Course summary