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:

For deprecated and removed features, see Deprecated features.

Installation and upgrade

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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. New information 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. New informationLearn more...

IBM Knowledge Center

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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. New informationLearn more...

Eclipse

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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. New information Learn more...

Samples and tutorials

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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. New information Learn more...

Decision Server

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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. New information 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. New information Learn more...

Decision Center

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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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information Learn more...

Decision Server Insights

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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. New information 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. New informationLearn 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. New information 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. New information Learn more...

A new sample that demonstrates the use of shared aggregates is also available. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New information 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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. New information 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. New information 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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. New informationLearn 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.New informationLearn more...