Business Rules Repository

Intro

A Business Rules Repository is a central store for business rules and decision logic. It matters in EA because it keeps rules consistent across processes, applications, and data.

Key points:

• Single source of truth for rules and policies
• Easier change control and auditability
• Used in EA for process enforcement, data validation, and application decisions
• Pitfall: unmanaged duplication across teams leads to conflicts

Examples:

• Customer onboarding checks stored centrally and reused by multiple systems
• Pricing and discount rules versioned for different regions
• Data quality rules applied during ETL to flag inconsistent records

In practice:

Define ownership, versioning, and approval workflows before scaling usage.

Related terms: Business Rules Engine; Decision Table; Governance

FAQs:

Q: How is this different from a rules engine?
A: The repository stores and manages rules; the engine executes them.

Q: Where should it live in the architecture?
A: As a shared component accessible by services and data pipelines.

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