Definition of the word "business" terms?

From: M Sweger <mikesw_at_dhp.com>
Date: 1997/12/24
Message-ID: <67qus6$shv$1@stronghold.dhp.com>#1/1

Hi,

        Alot of books (on DBMS', Java and Corba) and people, talk about the word "business" when designing software for some business application. The following terms seem to used interchangeably without regard to the individual distinction that separates their meaning - meaning that one definition implies that all the terms are the same. Here is a list of what I've put together and some definitions I think makes them unique although some people say that the are all the same.

	Business Data -- this is a piece or set of data that represents
			 the business operation but doesn't have any
			 defining relationship or validation with
			 respect to each other until validated and organized
			 by Business rules and business logic in the form
		         of an application representing the vertical
			 business market which defines the business
			 enterprise.

	Business Rule -- this is a condition that validates the data
		         necessary to perform the intended business
			 operation. Some examples would be, validating
			 that data for a field on the computer screen
			 is not empty, is numeric/alphabetic, is a valid
			 code (i.e. part number) etc. So essentially
		         validates data!

	Business Logic -- this is the process steps that take a set of
			  "business rules" and validates or controls
			  the flow of steps necessary to perform the 
			  intended business operation. An example
		  	  would be, If rule1 is true then do rule2 and
		    	  rule3. So essentially controls the flow
			  of business rule(s).

	Business Object -- this is also defined as a "domain object", whereby
			  an object contains state (the validated business
			  data as rules) operated on by the business logic
			  which are the methods used in OO. In addition
			  an object(s) working together represent a vertical
			  business market; however, a set of different
			  business object(s) working together define the
			  business enterprise. An example would be,
			  a business object that represents the accounting
			  department and another business object represents
			  manufacturing.....; both of these business objects
			  for each vertical market then define your business
			  enterprise.


	I'd appreciate any feedback on this terminology to clarify their

definitions and any other "business" (???) term not mentioned here. In discussing these concepts with my fellow workers, there seems to be varying definitions of the terminalogy which is leading people to mass confusion. Hence, people are going in circles trying to design and implement a Business application based on the Corba model to interact eventually with a DBMS and anything else.

TIA

--
	Mike,
	mikesw_at_whiterose.net

Received on Wed Dec 24 1997 - 00:00:00 CST