RE: [RIFRAF] Response to ACTION-179 --> CEP discussion

Hi Alex: 

Your counterexample is the http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/Rule-based_User_Notification_%28RUN%29_framework use case, referencing the Prova rule system - http://www.prova.ws/ .

In terms of RIF and CEP, I can only say that the TIBCO CEP product uses BOTH a state transition diagram AND ECA rules to represent CEP. Other vendors provide stream-processing SQL-type languages. The CEP vendor community (see http://www.complexevents.com/ ) is currently looking at the possibility of standards, but as this is a "new market area" [although of course CEP has been done using rules for a long time] the current opinion seems to be quite cool on the idea. See other posts on the topic in http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CEP-Interest/ and messages such as
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CEP-Interest/message/631 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CEP-Interest/message/800 
etc

I would be wary of suggesting the RIF can handle CEP (beyond ECA) as this implies to me event modelling/representation. But I may be wrong and maybe there is a common (ie supported by >1 system type) event language / XML representation / RDF mapping that already exists to support this? For conventional production rules the data model is quite simple, and the only event to consider is the service invocation event which is implied by the ruleset/rulesets' identifier (ie rule service).

I would also be wary of promoting RIF for CEP without support from the wider vendor community in this area. 

Cheers

Paul Vincent
TIBCO - ETG/Business Rules 
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Kozlenkov [mailto:alex.kozlenkov@betfair.com] 
Sent: 21 November 2006 16:50
To: Paul Vincent
Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
Subject: RE: [RIFRAF] Response to ACTION-179

Paul,

>>  And: in terms of rule classifications/ontologies, the ECA rules used
in TIBCO are
>>  in effect a specialization of PRR. As event mechanisms can be
considered out of
>>  scope for RIF (in my opinion, as both the CEP world and
organizations like OMG
>>  SOA are in the early stages of investigating this as I understand),
full CEP rules
>>  are unlikely to be an early candidate for RIF interchange.

Respectfully, I do not agree with your point. While CEP is out of scope
of PRR, it is not out of scope of RIF. Event processing IMO could be
captured quite nicely by compact self-contained syntax and semantics and
we do have use cases, although they are not part of the official 10
list. For us as a company, it is critical to have this standard.

Alex


>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Paul Vincent [mailto:pvincent@tibco.com]
>>  Sent: 21 November 2006 16:33
>>  To: Alex Kozlenkov; Paula-Lavinia Patranjan; Leora Morgenstern
>>  Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
>>  Subject: RE: [RIFRAF] Response to ACTION-179
>>  
>>  This raises an interesting point: semantics vs syntax of target rule
systems as
>>  far as RIF is concerned.
>>  
>>  TIBCO's BusinessEvents is one of the more successful commercial CEP
(Complex
>>  Event Processing) systems & uses a type of "ECA" rules, but rules
are defined in
>>  terms of production rules (plus a state transition diagram). So in
terms of
>>  representation (and interchange formats), production rules are
sufficient for the
>>  rules, but not for the full semantics of CEP. Indeed, the execution
semantics are
>>  slightly different from (ie an event-driven superset of)
conventional Rete-based
>>  rule engines (ie PRR).
>>  
>>  So: Business Events rule language ~= PRR + event semantics
>>  
>>  And: in terms of rule classifications/ontologies, the ECA rules used
in TIBCO are
>>  in effect a specialization of PRR. As event mechanisms can be
considered out of
>>  scope for RIF (in my opinion, as both the CEP world and
organizations like OMG
>>  SOA are in the early stages of investigating this as I understand),
full CEP rules
>>  are unlikely to be an early candidate for RIF interchange.
>>  
>>  Real world: supporting business rules (eg as supported in RIF/PRR
format)
>>  *are* used to support CEP event rules, and are definitely a
candidate for
>>  interchange to this CEP system.
>>  
>>  Summary(theory): many ECA rules may be considered derivatives /
>>  specializations of production rules, with different semantics (ie
event processing
>>  conditions and actions). For representation, they will be covered by
the
>>  production rule representation extended to handle popular event
tests and
>>  actions. However, as RIF will not encode event persistence data, the
utility of
>>  RIF for some ECA systems (such as CEP) will be limited. Note there
are no CEP
>>  use cases.
>>  
>>  Paul Vincent
>>  TIBCO - ETG/Business Rules
>>  
>>  
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: public-rif-wg-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-rif-wg-request@w3.org] On
>>  Behalf Of Alex Kozlenkov
>>  Sent: 21 November 2006 15:11
>>  To: Paula-Lavinia Patranjan; Leora Morgenstern
>>  Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
>>  Subject: RE: [RIFRAF] Response to ACTION-179
>>  
>>  
>>  Guys,
>>  
>>  For reaction rules, there are two ongoing projects that could
provide
>>  ideas for ontology characterization.
>>  
>>  One is the Reaction RuleML initiative:
>>  	http://ibis.in.tum.de/research/ReactionRuleML/ .
>>  
>>  The other is REWERSE r3 prototype:
>>  	http://rewerse.net/I5/r3/.
>>  
>>  In the first one, we have distinguished active vs. passive reaction
>>  rules (essentially having to poll vs. reacting passively to pushed
>>  inbound messages) functionality. We also orthogonally distinguish
global
>>  (non-contextual) and local (contextual) rules. In particular, the
latter
>>  allow the reactions to be contextualized by the current evolving
state
>>  of conversations making them comparable to process algebras, in
>>  particular, pi-calculus.
>>  
>>  Passive rules could be also categorized as message-based in that
they
>>  effectively capture communication acts explicitly.
>>  
>>  The REWERSE r3 prototype, also using the Prova language for the
>>  conditions and actions part, is based on a developed r3-ontology. It
>>  specifically distinguishes query and test components of an ECA rule.
>>  
>>  In summary, these are the resources that perhaps we should consider
>>  aligning the current RIFRAF view of the ECA area with.
>>  
>>  Alex Kozlenkov
>>  Betfair Ltd.
>>  
>>  >>  -----Original Message-----
>>  >>  From: public-rif-wg-request@w3.org
>>  [mailto:public-rif-wg-request@w3.org] On
>>  >>  Behalf Of Paula-Lavinia Patranjan
>>  >>  Sent: 21 November 2006 12:28
>>  >>  To: Leora Morgenstern
>>  >>  Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
>>  >>  Subject: [RIFRAF] Response to ACTION-179
>>  >>
>>  >>  Hi Leora,
>>  >>
>>  >>  This message is a response to the action we both took during the
F2F
>>  >>  meeting in Athens to revise and ontologize section 5 of RIFRAF
(see
>>  [1]
>>  >>  for my action). I read the comments attached to the answers to
>>  section
>>  >>  5's questions and tried to determine whether new questions
should be
>>  >>  added to this section or refinements of the existing questions
are
>>  >>  desired. Below are some proposals for improving section 5 of the
>>  >>  questionnaire.
>>  >>
>>  >>  (New discriminator to be added to 5.1)
>>  >>  What kind of rules are used for realizing the reactive
behaviour?
>>  >>    * Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules
>>  >>    * Event-Condition-Action-Postcondition (ECAP) rules
>>  >>    * Production rules
>>  >>    * Other (Please specify!)
>>  >>
>>  >>  (Update of discriminator 5.1.2; add the possibility to answer
with
>>  >>  'Mixed' to the question)
>>  >>  Are the different parts of a rule (e.g. Event, Condition, Action
>>  parts
>>  >>  for a ECA rule) clearly separated (separation of concerns)?
>>  >>    * Yes
>>  >>    * No
>>  >>    * Mixed (some rules in the language follow such a separation
of
>>  >>  concerns, some not)
>>  >>
>>  >>  The comments to the question 5.2.3 'Does the language support
only
>>  >>  atomic events or also composite events (combinations of more
than
>>  one
>>  >>  event such as temporal or events)?' could be considered as basis
for
>>  a
>>  >>  new discriminator for the (concrete) types of composite events
>>  >>  supported. The problem is that there are two many possibilities
for
>>  such
>>  >>  concrete composite events supported by a reactive language.
>>  Moreover,
>>  >>  the questionnaire already contains similar discriminators but
more
>>  >>  abstract (see 5.2.6 and 5.2.7). Thus, I propose not to add a new
>>  >>  discriminator for types of composite events.
>>  >>
>>  >>  What is your opinion on the proposals above?
>>  >>
>>  >>  Best regards from Munich,
>>  >>  Paula
>>  >>
>>  >>  [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/track/actions/179
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  _________________________________________________________________
>>  >>  _______
>>  >>  In order to protect our email recipients, Betfair use SkyScan
from
>>  >>  MessageLabs to scan all Incoming and Outgoing mail for viruses.
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  _________________________________________________________________
>>  >>  _______
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  _________________________________________________________________
>>  _______
>>  In order to protect our email recipients, Betfair use SkyScan from
>>  MessageLabs to scan all Incoming and Outgoing mail for viruses.
>>  
>>  _________________________________________________________________
>>  _______

Received on Tuesday, 21 November 2006 17:43:42 UTC