News earlier this week that IBM is buying French business rules player Ilog for $340m has once again shone a spotlight on this relative backwater of enterprise technology. While business process management systems have managed to move into the mainstream, some of the business rules companies have remained in something of a niche. But what are the options in open source business rules management systems, and why would you want one?

Access control is an important aspect of regulatory compliance. Therefore, access control specifications must be process-aware in that they can refer to an underlying business process context, but do not specify when and how they must be enforced. Such access control specifications are often expressed in terms of general rules and exceptions,
akin to defeasible logic. In this paper we demonstrate how a role-based, process-aware access control policy can be specified in the SBVR.

IBM has announced plans to acquire France-based business rules management and systems optimization software vendor Ilog for approximately E215m ($340m). IBM will combine its business process management (BPM), business optimization, and service oriented architecture (SOA) technologies with ILOG’s Business Rules Management Systems software.

IBM announced Monday that it plans to acquire business rules management software maker ILOG in a deal valued at $340 million. Under the deal, IBM will merge ILOG into its WebSphere brand, in a move to expand its middleware software footprint. Middleware is a layer of software that helps servers running databases and Web site software talk with servers running applications.

There are two key paths that can be pursued to increase the rate of innovation. First, is fostering an environment that rewards innovation to increase the amount of innovation within the organization.