Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, România

Business rules and business processes are essential artifacts in defining the requirements of a software system. Business processes capture business behavior, while rules connect processes and thus control processes and business behavior. Traditionally, rules are scattered inside application code. This approach makes it very difficult to change rules and shorten the life cycle of the software system. Because rules change more quickly than the application itself, it is desirable to externalize the rules and move them outside the application. This paper analyzes and evaluates three well-known business rules approaches. It also outlines some critical factors that have to be taken into account in the decision to introduce business rules facilities in a soft-ware system. Based on the concept of explicit manipulation of business rules in a software sys-tem, the need for a general approach based on business rules is discussed