The Institute of Information Management at the University of St. Gallen has engaged in applied and design oriented research at the interface between business and IT for more than 20 years. They support their partners in identifying different BRMS and in better understanding their varying functionalities. For this purpose, they have developed a two-part research study which has been answered by Nikola Kasev and Nanno van der Laan. p.s. our “standard” presentation which we use as an introduction when presenting to consulting firms like Accenture, KPMG, ATOS etc…. http://www.slideshare.net/LiquidSequence/harmony-overview-product-features-java-and-php-extension-33679367

1. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
Questionnaire
Study on Business Rules Management Systems
Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik
Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8
CH-9000 St. Gallen
Telefon.: +41 / 71 / 224 2420
Telefax: +41 / 71 / 224 2777
Author Simon Schlosser <simon.schlosser@unisg.ch>
Date: May 2014

2. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
1 Introduction and general questions
1.1 Vendor information
Name of the company
LiquidSequence
Name(s) of the product(s)
Harmony
Current version of the product(s)
3.0
Name of the interviewed person(s)
Nikola Kasev, Nanno van der Laan
Date
7/7/2014
1.2 General domain characteristics
Does your solution focus on a distinct industry
sector?
No, although COTS, such as Fraud Detector (for financials
and eCommerce), have recently become available
What are the core components of your solution?
An enhanced RETE rules engine, key-value and triplestore
distributed in-memory grids, relationship kernel (RK),
RESTful API services layer, sensor/adapter layer;
Is there a underlying methodology (business rules
approach, …)? Please describe it as
comprehensively as possible!
Decision tables from the OMG's DMN, business rules
based on LHS (left hand side) and RHS (right hand side);
When was the market entry of your product(s) Company established. Market entry summer 2013
Please describe the pricing/licensing model
User based pricing and “transactions” pricing for
solutions (Fraud Detector. Categorized by development
tools and run-time (execution).
What are the main use cases/scenarios where your
solution is in use? (process guidance, data validation,
compliance assurance, …)
Catalogue driven fulfillment in Fashion and Telco, fraud
detection in Finance, dynamic pricing and availability in
Tourism and Hospitality;
How many customers do use your solution? 12
Please provide us with some reference customers
and what use case they implemented!
On request
What is your product strategy? Which new
features/functions/etc. are planned?
Voice recognition and omni-channel process and decision
support;

3. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
2 Specific questions
2.1 Business Rules Management Organization
BRMO 01
How does the general underlying role model of your solution look like? Which roles (IT, business
analyst, etc.) are usually needed for successfully using your solution and what are their tasks?
Business analyst/subject matter expert will start with the data (business events) hitting processes and
define/manage the decision tables and rules. The same group will test the functionality starting with test data
in Testimony (data driven development) or record tests in Harmony and exporting to Testimony. IT will
implement sensors that will monitor interesting events happening in the enterprise (in systems or coming
from external sources), they will also implement adapters for integration with back-end systems.
BRMO 02
How does your rule ownership/role mapping look like (e.g. who controls the rule and who has
access right to modify rules?)
Users in the Admin group have access to the spreadsheet configuration which contains the decision tables
and business rules. A particular user can be given permissions to view, edit or comment on rules.
BRMO 03
How is the governance and change process for business rules supported by your solution? Does
an authorization concept exist? Does the solution support an own authorizations concept to
restrict changes & deployment to certain rules for specific user groups?
Users can request permission to access the rules configuration, the owner of the configuration can authorize
or not. Every change in the rules configuration is kept in a revision repository. A configuration can be reverted
to any previous revision. Every rules configuration has a version (starting with 1 and incremented by 1).
Every case started in Harmony contains the configuration version as well. Rules can be even written to apply
to particular version/s of a case.
BRMO 04 Comments or additional aspects
The organization of the rules management is based on the cloud collaboration functionality of the Google
Spreadsheets. Harmony adds extra version support and case versioning.
2.2 Business Rules Authoring
BRA 01
Are there defined vocabularies, grammars or ontologies that are used for business rules
authoring? Does your solution comprise functionality for defining concepts used in the business
rules (e.g. business data dictionary, business vocabulary)? Is it possible to import data models
which allows to generate fact models automatically (important e.g. for efficient rule
maintenance)?
There are no defined vocabularies per se, but concepts and (their) attributes are the basis for rule authoring.
Ontologies based on triples (subject-predicate-object like "person knows person", i.e. "Bob knows Fred") can
be defined as well. Harmony also has a pre-defined set of grammars for RK lookups (graph traversal),

4. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
expressions and functions such as repeat(), first_available(), operations with dates, outstanding work item
creation, system back-end integration, timers and deadlines, security, UI presentation/validation logic.
BRA 02
What type of rule descriptions/specifications does your product support? Does your product
support capturing business rules in a high-level (natural) language? How close is the dialect on
human language? Does your product support the declaration of rules based on the Semantics
of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR)?
Harmony supports decision tables in two flavors: two-dimensional and multi-dimensional. Harmony also
supports rules in the if-then format (LHS -> RHS) as defined in RIF. Triples are specified in natural language.
SBVR isn't supported due to its focus on formulation and not execution (i.e. turning rules into working
applications).
BRA 03
Is the language to define the rules in a technical manner a standard language for business
rules definition? Which rule languages does your solution support?
The language to define the rules is one or more Google Spreadsheets with a pre-defined format. Harmony
has a Rules sheet for rules in the if-then format, DT_ sheets for two-dimensional decision tables and MDT_
for multi-dimensional decision tables. RK_Model sheets contains the definitions of relations between
concepts, such as "person signs contract". RIF would be the closest, as Harmony combines a production (if-
then ) and a declarative (semantic) rules language.
BRA 04
Does your solution provide the ability to coexist and share metadata and rules with business
rules management systems / business rules engines from other vendors? How is the language
interchangeability? Which standards does your solution refer to? (Particularly, Rules
Interchange Format (RIF), Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR), Production
Rule Representation (PRR), RuleML, …)
No specific standard is supported, due to the combination of a production and a declarative rule language
and the existence of so many standards (which one to support and which one not?);
BRA 05
Does your rule engine allow pre-defined template or “out-of-the-box” policies and rules for such
industry processes as supply chain, discrete manufacturing control, mortgage approval or
claims processing?
Harmony provides pre-defined templates for decision tables in pricing and shipping costs, money lending
approval, catalogue-driven fulfillment, 4-eye principle (compliance), feasibility and others (which we call
building blocks);
BRA 06
Does the solution allow classifying business rules by different meta data (e.g. the ability to
cluster and manage rules by project or role) or segmented rule definition repositories (e.g.
segmented by project, application or geography)? Is it possible to embed (e.g. via link) external
content (static)?
Due to the use of spreadsheets, adding rule meta data is possible and very flexible (links, text, multi
language support). Harmony provides a "tag" functionality that can be used to group rules in a particular
building block.
BRA 07
Does your solution have the ability of rule extensibility (e.g. ability to extend rules by your own
attributes, such as adding metadata to all rules that relate to “blood chemistry” – rule
classification)? Is it possible to create distinct rule sets in order to categorize the business
rules?
We don't understand the question. How is this different than BRA 06?
BRA 08
Of which attributes does your business rules model consist of? (e.g. Metadata, Date, Version,
Description, Rule Code, …)

5. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
Metadata, Date, Version, Description ... anything that you could put in a spreadsheet.
BRA 09 Comments or additional aspects
None.
2.3 Business Rules Change Management
BRCM 01
How is the change process modeled, e.g. with respect to responsibilities? In particular, what is
the usual way between the recognition that a business rule needs to be changed till the
deployment of the implemented rule (steps, approval …)? Does your solution provide dynamic
rule change support (e.g. the business rules engine allows instant rule changes)?
Users with edit permission can change rules, users with view permission can only read and users with
comment can only comment on rules. The approval process is implemented using the standard "issue-
resolve" functionality of Google Spreadsheets. Instant rule validation and dynamic changes is a core
functionality. New versions undergo “automatic” regression testing for which we use Testimony, Harmony’s
“sister” product
BRCM 02
Does your solution provide change tracking for business rules? Are changes on implemented
rules, the business rules descriptions and definitions logged by an audit trail for a later tracking
of changes?
Change tracking is based on the standard "revision" functionality of Google Spreadsheets. A Harmony
configuration with its rules can be reverted to a previous revision as well.. A copy of a spreadsheet can be
made which allows for a snapshot (milestone) backup of rules.
BRCM 03 How many versions can be stored, how to retire old versions?
The amount of versions stored is practically limitless. Old versions are retired by deleting the spreadsheets.
BRCM 04
How does the solution reflect the life cycle of a rule or a rule set? Are there defined status for a
single business rule or business rule set?
There is no pre-determined life cycle of a rule(set). It's up to the user to decide on how/if to do this.
BRCM 05 Comments or additional aspects
Note that Harmony is also a “case” management system. Cases can be run with updated rule/process
changes OR older cases can be run with the original version. A Life Insurance policy from 1990 can still be
run with the 1990 version.
2.4 Organizational and Technical Integration
OTI 01
In general, what are possible integration scenarios for your solution? How are business rules
consumers connected to your solution? Is there a possibility to use your solution directly on
databases e.g. for data validation? With which other systems, e.g. ERP, CRM, business
process engines, etc. can your solution be integrated? Please do state the product names! Are
there interfaces with business process analysis/BPM vendors?
Business rules consumers can access the rules and execute them via the RESTful API of Harmony.
Harmony cannot be used for data validation (data at rest), but it is used for validating/deciding on a stream of
events (data in motion). Harmony can be integrated with any solution that supports XML, SOAP over HTTP

6. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
or JMS and JSON. We have successfully integrated with IBM's AS400 and web-services. BPMN and
flowchart graphical models from http://www.lucidchart.com can be imported automatically into Harmony.
OTI 02
Does your solution allow to be integrated into existing development environments (e.g. Eclipse,
SAP devel-oper’s workbench, visual studio)? (Rule-based development)
No, Harmony's development environment is Google Spreadsheets. LucidChart flowchart and BPMN models
can be imported to generate the system. More on OT07
OTI 03
How can the application be integrated into existing authorization tools for user request, user
role assignment and approval of user change requests?
Unable to answer, could you give examples for existing authorization tools?
OTI 04
How are business rules deployed to business processes? From the perspective of your
solution, how are business rules management and business process management
interconnected?
Business processes are broken down into steps which have pre-conditions and outcomes. Those are then
mapped to business rules. Essentially, a business process is implemented as a set of rules. Rules can use
grammar specific to BPM, such as OWIs (outstanding work items), deadlines and expiry, external events and
timers, swim lanes and authorization.
OTI 05
Does your solution provide integration/coordination of distributed rule engines with a corporate
“master” (e.g. allow a single rule repository to feed multiple runtime BREs)? Is the definition of
rules visible for everyone? How can information like rules definition accessed by 3rd party
application?
The rule specifications are exported as XML, which is then deployed to one or more runtime BREs (which we
call Harmony instances). The master is the spreadsheet, a runtime is configured in there as well, uploading to
a runtime is performed via the spreadsheet as well. The definition of rules is only visible to authorized users.
All rule definitions in a run-time BRE are accessible via the RESTful API of Harmony. New rules can be
added and started instantly via the same API, allowing for a dynamic application that can be changed without
restarting the BRE.
OTI 06
Is the solution accessible via a web based client? Does the solution provide REST/SOAP
interfaces? Is the interface for maintaining rules a web based one?
Yes, Harmony is fully web-based. All of Harmony's functionality is exposed via a RESTful API. The interface
for maintaining the Harmony configuration (rules, decision tables, expressions, RK store) is a Google
Spreadsheet, which is a web based one.
OTI 07 Comments or additional aspects
We’re in the process signing an OEM partnership with a US marketing company that is provide new
generation cloud based BPMN & DMN tooling. General availability End Q3/begin Q4 2014.
2.5 Business Rules Engine

7. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
BRE 01
Is a business rules engine for the execution of rules part of your general solution? Can the
business rules engine run standalone? (E.g. a standalone rule repository may use the business
rules engine for rule execution)
Yes, the BRE is a part of our general Harmony solution. Yes, it can be run on-premise or in the cloud. Rules
from the repository (the Google Spreadsheet) can be deployed for execution on the BRE.
BRE 02
Can an application 1 with a certain underlying model use the same rules as application 2 that
has another model (customer zip code/delivery address in sales order, same rules for same
fields)? Does your solution have the ability to share rule sets across multiple runtime engines?
One application can use the rules of another when the concepts and attributes in the rules are the same.
Rules can be shared by copying from one spreadsheet to another. A Harmony instance (and it's BRE) loads
its rules from a single repository only.
BRE 03
Is it possible to determine dependencies between rules (predecessor)? Does your rules engine
support forward chaining, backward chaining or even both? Does your rules engine implement
the Rete algorithm or any other advanced algorithm? Does the solution support the sequencing
of the rules execution (e.g. control the rules flow)?
During the loading of the rule definitions, the BRE optimizes them and re-uses dependent parts. Users can
see not only which rules fired, but also get an explanation why they fired. Harmony supports forward chaining
(inference). It implements an enhanced Rete algorithm. Rules in Harmony are inherently executed in parallel,
but the BRE recognizes situations where rules must be executed in sequence (and/or in a particular order)
automatically.
BRE 04 Does the solution offer features to debug the business rules execution?
Debugging is done visually from the Harmony's user interface. Testimony is used to test a rule set by
submitting test data and comparing expected with actual results. This guarantees the consistency of the
rules, rule coverage and regression testing.
BRE 05 Is it possible to utilize data in/of external DB during rule execution?
No, Harmony's BRE is designed for parallel execution of rules with soft real-time characteristics. Accessing
an external DB involves IO operations that are very expensive and have great impact on the performance of
the BRE.
Sensors can be built that detect changes on a DB and submit events to Harmony (our WAS400 sensor for
example), which in turn execute rules.
BRE 06
Does your solution provide agent or daemon links (e.g. sensing external events or using agent
“sniffing” to determine rule evaluation, such as “if this indicator comes on, shut down the
nuclear reactor”)?
Yes, sensors are an integral part of Harmony. When an external event in a system is detected, the sensor
submits an event to Harmony via the RESTful API, which in turn forwards to the BRE for rule matching and
execution.
BRE 07
Does your solutions provide options for code-generation (e.g. for performance consideration,
the ability to compile rules sequences into base languages like C++, Java and C#)?
When Harmony turns a spreadsheet into a working BRE, it involves code-generation and dynamic
compilation. The BRE is designed for performance (parallel execution with soft real-time characteristics). C++
could be a choice, but very hard to maintain due to no built-in message passing mechanisms and share-
nothing data structures. Java and C# are unsuitable for BREs due to the garbage collection logic and the
internal threading abstraction mechanisms of the JVM and CLR respectively.
BRE 08 Does your solution have the ability to rerun the engine for a point that has passed (e.g. after 1

8. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
January, still be able to rerun year-end jobs with 31 December rules) – audit capability?
Rules can have a date pre-condition, so they fire for events with a certain timestamp. For example, process
the 2014 invoice with rules for year 2014.
BRE 09
Which factors impact the performance of the engine? How big is the impact of the size of the
rule base? Are there any performance measurements you can share with us?
The factors that determine the performance of the engine are:
a. available working memory;
b. available CPU cores;
c. operating system in use: epoll support on Linux, kqueue on BSD for example;
d. availability and latency of the network (Harmony is a distributed system running on one or more physical
machines);
The size of a rule base has impact on the startup of the BRE because of an optimization process that has to
load all the rules before determining what's the best execution model. The size of the rule set has
theoretically a minimal impact on the performance, due to the parallel execution model (executing 10 or 1K
rules isn't much of a difference).
BRE 10 Comments or additional aspects
None.
2.6 Business Rules Monitoring
BRM 01
Does your solution provide metrics and KPIs for measuring and monitoring business rules
execution? Which ones? How are they measured?
More information needed to be able to answer this question. What KPIs do you mean precisely?
BRM 02 How are measuring results displayed and documented? (e.g. graphical dashboard, report, …)
Measuring results such as total number of processes, RETE inference run duration, process queue depth
and API response times are logged in text files or on standard output (console).
BRM 03
Is there a log file? Which filter criteria are available? Is it possible to access the log from other
applications?
Yes, there is a log file. Logging for the BRE can be setup to monitor specific nodes of the RETE network for
example (how long does it take for a predicate function in the alpha node to execute, how long takes for a bet
node to process info from the alpha nodes, how long does it take for a terminal node to execute its action).
BRM 04 Comments or additional aspects
None.
2.7 Business Rules Testing
BRT 01
How to validate rules? What functionality does your solution provide for validation with respect
to testing one rule on its own / all rules and impact on each other (scenario/testing?)

9. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
Testimony is our product that guarantees the correctness of the rules implemented in Harmony. It's also
based on a Google Spreadsheet where the following are stored:
a. input data sets;
b. expected results;
c. actual results that were matched with b.;
Testimony looks at the rules implemented in the BRE as a black box. If a single rule is to be tested, test
scenarios that fire that rule are defined and expected results are matched against actual results. More than
one or all rules are tested the same way, it doesn't make a difference.
BRT 02
Does your solution provide functionality for performing impact analyses for new business rules
or business rules modification (either on the level of formalized business rules (e.g. SBVR rules
if supported) or on level of the actual rule code)? How is recursive rule execution avoided and
how can duplicate rules be found?
Impact analyses is done by keeping track and versioning Testimony's test configuration and results between
executions. When a rule is modified, a battery of Testimony tests are executed to make sure no existing logic
is broken (i.e. what was green is now red). Recursive rule execution is avoided by an enhanced rule
inference run method in the BRE. Duplicate rules are detected by the RETE network optimization process,
see remarks in BRE 09.
BRT 03 Are there test templates, how does the solution support the creation of test cases?
There are Testimony test templates, the creation of test cases can be done in two ways:
a. Data driven development - define the test data and expected results, define the rule and run the tests or;
b. Record Testimony test cases in Harmony - implement the logic first, record a test, enrich the test with more
test data;
BRT 04
Does the test functionality within the rules definition support the following tests: Rules collision
checking, Rules overlap and “underlap” checking, Analysis for mathematical/logical
completeness? Can business rules be checked for integrity and consistency (either on the level
of formalized business rules or on level of the actual rule code)?
What is "rule collision checking" precisely?
Rules overlap and "underlap" is currently not checked (no current commercial need). Analysis for
mathematical/logical completeness not supported due to complexity (no current commercial need).
The integrity and consistency of the actual rule code is guaranteed by Testimony which executed all test
cases via the RESTful API of Harmony's BRE.
BRT 05 Does the solution offer functionality for debugging business rules execution?
See BRE 04.
BRT 06 Is testing possible without impacting productive applications?
Yes, testing is performed in a sandbox environment which has no impact on the applications running on the
BRE.
BRT 07 Comments or additional aspects
None.

10. © BEI St. Gallen 2014, Study on Business Rules Management Systems St. Gallen, 2014
2.8 Cross-Task Functions
CTF 01
Which search options do exist? Is there a full text search available? Can external
sources/content be included in the search? Can different meta data categories/taxonomies
(e.g. rule set, systems) be used to tag rules and find them in the search?
Search/replace of a concept/attribute is supported via a menu item in the spreadsheet. Search can be
performed on any element, external source can't be included in the search.
CTF 02 Which user management functions does your solution provide?
Permissions to edit, view or comment on rule configurations. Permissions to login to Harmony, access all or
specific cases, one-time dialogs, granting user's access at runtime via rules.
CTF 03 Comments or additional aspects
None.
3 Project management
Please describe the general high level approach for implementing your solution in organizations?
(Requirements analysis  Going Live)
Our well-formulated triple-three approach: We take three hours to figure out what the purpose of the
application is, three days to create a working application as a proof-of-concept and three weeks to complete
the whole application.
(1) We start with a high-level diagram which we verify with the customer
(2) Generate the application (one minute job) and add critical patch details (fields influencing process
and rules). A new version is generated which we verify with the customer
(3) Next the customer provides details – we change from process driven to data driven development.
Details are implemented by us or by customer. Each sprint involved one/more new versions as well
as creation of test stories and test cases with Testimony. Each version undergoes regression testing
which is fully automated.
(4) Customer signs off and system is live. No need for non-functional testing in domain of performance,
security, scalability