Need for incorporating a rule-based component in conventional object oriented systems

System requirements, which define automatic behavior within a domain model, appear variously as business policies, engineering rules, domain laws, constraints, and state transitions. At first glance, such requirements seem easy to implement in the conventional object oriented (OO) space, but when looked closely, the most natural way of expressing such behavior is the rule based approach. Given a seamless bridge between the two paradigms, the combination not only provides ease of programming but also conceptual clarity at a higher level. In this paper, we consider the features of logic languages and their advantages in representation of various aforesaid system requirements. We look at the conventional three tier object oriented architecture and its advantage and disadvantages using different examples. We propose an optimum architecture that combines the best of both. We also apply the proposed architecture in the context of building highly configurable systems.