What's new in V8.8.0
Learn what's new in Operational Decision Manager V8.8.0.
New features and updates are available for the following components:
- Installation and upgrade
- IBM Knowledge Center
- Eclipse
- Samples and tutorials
- Decision Server
- Decision Center
- Decision Server Insights
For deprecated and removed features, see Deprecated features.
Installation and upgrade
One installer
Operational Decision Manager V8.8.0 comes with only one installer: IBM®
Installation Manager. You can tailor your installation by
selecting only the parts of the components that you need. The installer also provides features for
finding and installing updates and dependent software.
Learn more...
Extended support for rolling upgrades
Operational Decision Manager now supports rolling upgrades and
module compatibility between V8.7 and V8.8.0 for Decision Server Rules and Decision
Center. Learn more...
IBM Knowledge Center
Local help service
In addition to the online IBM Knowledge Center for Operational Decision Manager, you can also use locally installed help
files. You can access the help files from Operational Decision Manager
Rule
Designer, Insight Designer, or Event Designer. Learn more...
Eclipse
Eclipse 4.4.2 in rule editors
Operational Decision Manager V8.8.0 now uses Eclipse 4.4.2 in Rule
Designer, Insight Designer, and Event Designer. You can extend an existing
installation of Eclipse if it is Eclipse 4.4.2.
Learn more...
Samples and tutorials
Focus on decision services
Operational Decision Manager V8.8.0 replaces classic rule projects with
decision services, and Decision Validation Services with testing and simulation features in the
Decision Center Business console. The updated samples and tutorials, including the getting started
tutorials, focus on using decision services.
Learn more...
Decision Server
Java 8 support
The Decision Server components now support
Java SE 8, and no longer support Java SE 6. The components also support Java SE 7.
Learn more...
Asynchronous mode for hosted transparent decision services
You can now run your hosted transparent decision services synchronously or asynchronously in
Rule Execution Server. By default, the services operate
synchronously to run the most recent version of a ruleset. However, you can choose to run rulesets
asynchronously to apply an old ruleset until the parsing of a new ruleset is finished.
Learn more...
Decision Center
Management of users, groups, and simplified security from the Business console
A new administrative interface facilitates connections to LDAP directories and management of
users and groups, with simplified permissions.
Learn more...
Improved navigation in the Business console
Business console users can access decision service rule content with a more efficient interface.
Revisit the Getting started with decision services tutorial to familiarize yourself with the
improved navigation.
Learn more...
Creation and management of decision operations in the Business console
The Business console includes a new editor to manage decision operations in decision services.
Learn more...
Ruleflows in the Business console
A new ruleflow viewer allows users to see the details of ruleflow tasks, and navigate between
flows, tasks, and rules.
Learn more...
Performance and usability improvements in the Business console decision table editor
The decision table editor can now handle larger tables, providing smoother scrolling and faster
editing. There are several usability improvements, including the layout of multiple parameters in
subcolumns and enhanced spreadsheet editing. The decision table also comes with several new features
that were previously only available in Rule
Designer.
Learn more...
Decision Runner support for testing
The Decision Runner now supports rule testing on the classic rule engine in the Business
console. You no longer need two runtime service applications to support testing and simulation in
the console. The Decision Runner covers both features for validating rules, and it works with both
the classic rule engine and the decision engine.
Learn more...
Extended support for tests and simulations with the decision engine
Decision
engine support now encompasses XML XOMs. You can use the Business
console to run tests and simulations on the decision engine in a decision
service that is based on a Java™ or
XML XOM. Learn more...
Decision Server Insights
Migration from V8.7.1.0
If you use V8.7.1.0, you can migrate it to V8.8.0. You must also update and redeploy
solutions from previous versions.
Learn more...
Java 8 support
Decision Server
Insights now uses Java SE 8, and standard Java classes
replace JSR 310 classes. If your solution project contains elements that are related to date and
time types, you must use the java.time
Java API instead of the org.threeten.bp API.
You can use the Migrate Solution wizard to update these types. Learn more...
Language support for Chinese and Hebrew
You can now select Chinese (zh_TW or zh_CN) or Hebrew (iw_IL) as the language of your solution.
You can then write the rule agent files (.brl) and global aggregate files
(.agg) in this language.
Learn more...
Shared aggregates
In the business model statements, you can define the aggregation of values that are related to an
attribute of an entity in a collection of events. For example, you can calculate the value of the
purchase count of a customer from purchase events that occurred
during a specific time period.
Learn more...
A new sample that demonstrates the use of shared aggregates is also available.
Learn more...
Moving geometry attributes
In the business model, you can define moving geometry attributes that specify the geospatial
aspects of elements in your business model.
Learn more...
Coordinates of geographical points in rules
In the business model definitions, you can set the type of an attribute to a point, and use the longitude and latitude arguments of this
point in rules. For example, you can write a rule that updates the latitude and longitude values of
the location of a car entity.
Learn more...
Interface for inserting calendar duration values
Insight Designer now includes an interface
for entering calendar durations in rules, aggregates, business model statements, and rule agent
descriptor editors. You can enter values for the number of years, months, weeks, days, hours,
minutes, and seconds. You can also edit an existing calendar duration by double-clicking the value.
Learn more...
Easier creation of data provider extensions for IBM SPSS® Statistics services
You can use the Predictive Scoring Data Provider Extension wizard to create
a predictive scoring data provider that can call a scoring configuration on an external scoring
server.
Learn more...
HTTP gateway
A Java test client can now send events by using the HTTP
gateway. You can send events over HTTP without having to configure the connectivity in your test
environment. Learn more...
JMS message properties and HTTP headers
You can now set the JMS message properties or HTTP headers of outbound messages for individual
endpoints. You can, for example, specify the values of JMS message properties that enable
subscribers to identify messages by using a message selector. Learn more...
Test scenarios
You can now test solutions in Insight Designer without programming. You can submit
events, load entities, create common definitions, and check the existence of entities and the values
of entities and entity attributes. The results of your tests are displayed in the
Console view. Learn more...
TestDriver entity initialization
You can use TestDriver to initialize a set of entities. The entities can be
instances of entity types in the BOM project of your solution, or you can load a collection of
entities from a set of XML files.
Learn more...
Insight Map Viewer
You can use the Insight Map Viewer to view
entities in your model that have static or moving geospatial type attributes. You can customize the
entities on your map to help you visualize them in a meaningful way, and see more easily which
actions are taken by the solution.
Learn more...
Solution debugging and problem diagnosing Insight Inspector
Enhanced capabilities in Insight Inspector
help you to debug solutions, and diagnose problems more easily. These capabilities include a better
organization of the rules to view which ones are associated with an event, log entries from agents,
better navigation between emitted and processed events, time-based triggered events on the timeline,
and the ability to identify agents that cause errors. Learn more...
Highlighting the scheduled processing of events in Insight Inspector
When an event is processed on a schedule or after a delay, the event is displayed with a clock
icon on the solution timeline. The clock icon is displayed every time that event is processed. The
timeline also highlights the original event, or events in the case of multiple related events, and
all of the scheduled processing when you select one of the icons. Learn more...
Monitoring Insight Server
Insight Monitor is a new feature that allows
you to monitor all of the runtime servers in your topology. The user interface provides useful
information to troubleshoot your servers if they are not running as you expect. To access the
Insight Monitor, you must enable the Liberty
admin center feature in the server.xml of one of your catalog servers. Learn more...
Tuning Java virtual machines
You can customize a Java virtual machine (JVM) by editing
the default values for the -Xmx and the
-XX:MaxDirectMemorySize settings. Learn more...
Configuring eXtremeMemory
You can configure Decision Server
Insights to use system
heap memory for data storage instead of Java heap. Enable
eXtremeMemory and configure the system heap memory for each runtime server in your topology. Learn more...
Removal of the serverManager rebalance command
The product no longer includes the rebalance command. Under normal
circumstances, you do not need to manually rebalance Insight Server. When a server is added to the
topology, it stores and processes information.Learn more...