Decision Management in the Hybrid Cloud
By Jerome Joubert and Peter Gilliver
“Hybrid cloud” is a computing architecture that mixes on-premises, cloud (private or public), and third-party services elements – this flexible approach means you get the right services in the right place, and at the right price.
For example, an online tax declaration system might host sensitive data on-premises or in a private cloud. When demand on the system intensifies at the end of the financial year, it could access additional processing resources in the public cloud, or switch to third-party services for less critical parts of the system.
Another example is developing and testing in the public cloud where you can provision environments quickly and simply, and then deploying your solution to pre-production and production environments that run on-premises or in a private cloud where you have more control to fine tune performance and securely handle sensitive data.
The hybrid cloud architecture makes it possible to create composite applications by mixing specialized services running in the cloud and on-premises. In this way you can quickly put together a larger domain-specific application. For example, you could build an application using a runtime environment, a database, cognitive services, and analytics services. Bluemix offers dozens of services like this, which can help you innovate and solve real, complex business problems fast.
Business Rules for Bluemix fits neatly into this hybrid cloud architecture. It is a service in the cloud for making business decisions. You can invoke the Business Rules service from applications and other services running on-premises or in the cloud. You can also combine it with other apps on the Bluemix platform.
Assembling elements to form a larger application
Context
On Bluemix you can use contextual data, whether it comes from a cloud database or environmental resources, such as weather, geospatial, and IoT. This data feeds the Business Rules service with context to take informed decisions. For example, on rainy days deliveries generally take 10% longer, so when it’s forecast to rain the service increases its delivery time estimates by 10%.
Cognitive
Cognitive is also a great source of high-level data. When you need to take decisions from unstructured data, such as natural language or images, Watson Cognitive services will extract the meaning and input decisions with consumable information. For example, if a customer’s tone indicates severe distress the decision service can suggest the call manager re-route the call to someone trained in crisis management.
Integration
Other services or apps running on Bluemix can be integrated to form a larger solution. For example, Node-RED can help link devices and data feeds, and it’s integrated with the Business Rules service – with a particular focus on IoT. API Connect offers the capability to create, run, manage and secure APIs and micro-services. Coupling business intelligence to those APIs helps you build a solution that makes sense for both IT and your business.
Execution
Bluemix runtimes can execute custom applications on the cloud, in the form of enterprise applications or micro-services. Whenever it’s required, they can invoke a decision service to drive the business logic.
Hybrid Integration
The Business Rules service can be integrated with external resources running on-premises, in other clouds, or through mobile and web applications. You can deploy to and invoke the Business Rules service securely from any remote location. Also, for those running IBM Operational Decision Manager, they can use ODM Decision Center to manage and deploy decision services to Bluemix.
DevOps
Bluemix offers powerful life cycle management tools and services to help you build, test and deliver complex hybrid applications.
Hybrid cloud brings endless possibilities for enterprise, web, and mobile applications, but also for new families of apps. For example, chatbots leverage the power of cognitive services and deep learning to understand the meaning of a conversation, while business rules tell you what needs to be considered, from a business perspective. IoT services bring awareness about what’s going on in the field, and business rules help you adapt. And, as always, when things change you can update the rules in minutes and keep your business on track.
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