5.0.2 Release Notes

JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform 5

Important information related to the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform 5.0.2 product release

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Abstract

These release notes contain important information related to the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform 5.0.2 product. Known problems, additional resources, and other current issues are addressed here.

1. Overview

The JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform is a complete solution for the development and management of rules-based applications using JBoss Rules in your enterprise. It provides a standards compliant, JCR-based repository for version control of rule related assets, a web-based management and development UI and the latest JBoss Rules 5 API technology.
These community developed and enterprise certified and supported products have been integrated and tested to provide a solid, robust, and scalable platform. Powered by legendary JBoss innovation and backed by Red Hat engineering and quality assurance, the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform is the solution of choice for rules-based application development and management in your enterprise.

2. Documentation

The JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform documentation is available for online reading and download at http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/JBoss_Enterprise_BRMS_Platform/index.html.
In addition to these release notes, the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform documentation contains the following documents:
BRMS User Guide
The BRMS User Guide is a complete guide to the installation, configuration and use of the BRMS Platform.
JBoss Rules 5 Reference Guide
The JBoss Rules 5 Reference Guide contains both an introduction to, and a complete reference to the JBoss Rules 5.0 as supported by the BRMS Platform.

4. Supported Deployment Platforms

The JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform has been tested and supported on several leading Java application servers, database servers and web-browsers.

Important

The default configuration uses an embedded Derby database. This configuration is included only for evaluation, testing and demonstration purposes. It is not recommended or supported in a production environment.

5. Installation Notes

Installation of the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform requires a supported Java Application Server and Java Virtual Machine. In your production environment you also require a database server. Details on the supported application servers, JVM and database servers can be found at http://www.jboss.com/products/platforms/brms/supportedconfigurations/.
Refer to the BRMS User Guide for installation instructions.

6. Technology Previews

The JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform includes the following Technology Preview features:
  • JBoss Rules: Complex Event Processing (CEP)
  • BRMS: Customized selectors for package building
Technology Preview features are not fully supported, may not be functionally complete, and are not intended for production use. These features are included to provide customers with early access to upcoming product innovations, enabling them to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.
Red Hat JBoss support will provide commercially reasonable efforts to resolve any reported issues that customers experience when using these features.

7. Possible Migration Issue

Read this section to learn about the differences between this release of JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform and previous releases that may cause difficulties when moving your applications to this version.
As a matter of best practice, Red Hat recommends that you test all of your existing applications on this new version of the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform before deploying it in your production environment.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-271
The serialization of binary resources used in JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform 5.0.1 and later is not backwards compatible with the 5.0.0 release. This is because of a necessary bug fix that unavoidably changed the structure of the data being serialized.
This means that:
  1. Client applications built using the JBoss Rules engine libraries from the 5.0.0 release are unable to use resources being served from a JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform server of version 5.0.1 or later.
  2. Client applications built using the JBoss Rules engine libraries from the 5.0.1 and later releases are unable to use resources being served from a JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform 5.0.0 server.

8. Issues resolved in the 5.0.2 release

The following issues were resolved for the 5.0.2 release of the JBoss Enterprise BRMS platform.
This release also contains the fixes from the 5.0.1 release. Refer to the documentation for that release for details.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-233
Several screenshots in the BRMS User Guide were not updated to reflect the current user interface. These images and the accompanying text have been updated.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-240
Some log messages where always being displayed in the console although the log4j configuration specified otherwise. This was because those messages where being displayed using System.out.println() statements instead of the log4j logging service. These statements have been replaced with calls to log4j methods and the messages are now displayed according to the log4j configuration.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-262
A new section (2.7) has been added to the BRMS User Guide to provide some guidance on alternative logging configurations.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBRULES-2117
A thread that called the method fireAllRules() would be blocked if another thread was already running fireUntilHalt(). The threading behavior of the fireAllRules() and fireUntilHalt() methods have been updated to prevent this occurring.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBRULES-2280
The Japanese (ja-JP) localization of the web user interface has been updated with many improvements.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBRULES-2369
A rule in the following scenario would only fire once:
  • the rule had multiple patterns with no constraints,
  • the rule had a modify() call in the consequence,
  • and an update() or modify() call was made from another rule on one of the facts that matched one of the patterns of this rule.
This occurred because the dormant activations counter became unsynchronized when the call to modify() or update() was made. This has been fixed, the dormant activations counter now reports the correct value in this scenario and these rules now fire correctly.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-279
The UUID and name columns of the archived assets detail list were not displaying the correct header labels in the user interface. No text appeared in the headers for these columns if they were enabled, and the header pulldown menu displayed the text "undefined" for those items. The correct labels have been added for both the menu and column heading and they now appear as expected.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-280
The UUID and name columns of the assets detail list were not displaying the correct header labels in the user interface. No text appeared in the headers for these columns if they were enabled, and the header pulldown menu displayed the text "undefined" for those items. The correct labels have been added for both the menu and column heading and they now appear as expected.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-297
Several minor typographical errors were displayed in the BRMS web user interface. These errors were in the file Constants.properties. This file has been updated and the correct text is now displayed.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-305
When using Internet Explorer 7, the "Refreshing item" dialog did not automatically close when archiving assets. This gave the impression that the archiving process did not complete. The dialog was updating the displayed meta-data for the asset and was not necessary. This dialog has been removed.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-306
Enumerations that used external functions would cause a NULL Pointer exception to be thrown in the guided editor. This has been fixed and these enumerations now work as expected.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-314
In some circumstances the date picker components of the Find screen where not displaying correctly. These components have been replaced with a different date picker component and they now display correctly.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-321
Adding or changing values for an enumeration in the guided editor would cause all the other editor fields to reload. To reduce unnecessary reloading and make the presentation of the editor clearer, the rule being edited is now presented as plain text and the editing controls are only shown when the text is clicked on.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-364
When a class from a model was used in the expect condition of a test scenario and the model was later removed, opening the test scenario would cause the editor to throw a Null Pointer Exception. The editor now checks for NULL so the test scenario can be opened to remove the null item.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-374
DSL Boolean rules were only saving the value of true when used in the guided editor. This has been fixed and now saves the correct value for the selection.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-377
Test scenarios that contained method calls to List globals (java.util.List) would fail to run, and would instead display an error dialog. This has been fixed and these method calls now work as expected.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-378
The Remove this block of data button did not work when removing a global from a test scenario. This button is displayed in the dialog box that appears when you select a global in the guided editor. This has been fixed and the button now removes the global as expected.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-393
The CheckBoxDslRule rule in the Mortages sample repository was empty. This was because checkboxes are no longer supported. This rule has been removed from the sample repository.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/GUVNOR-453
After a model JAR had been uploaded to a package, any subsequently uploaded model JAR to the same package was not having its imported types added to the package. This has been fixed and now all uploaded model JARs have their imported types added automatically.

9. Known Issues in this Release

The following issues are known to exist in this version of the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform and will be fixed in a subsequent release.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-117
The BRMS workspace grants full trust to users logged in to the BRMS Platform. It is recommended that you isolate the Application Server instance where the BRMS Platform is deployed from other production servers.
The following security precautions allow you to work with the BRMS Platform full trust model without impairing your production environment:
  • Install the BRMS Platform server on a non-production EAP instance without co-located applications
  • Install the BRMS server in a non-production trust zone, with the trust level of an employee workstation.
  • Define least-privilege permissions for the database user account being used for the BRMS database.
  • Define least-privilege permissions for the JVM process running the BRMS Platform server at the OS level.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-222
The JBoss Enterprise BRMS Platform logs several errors if it is deployed to the default server configuration of JBoss EAP. This does not seem to have any functional impact.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-102
Version history is not cleared when importing a repository
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-56
Some of the BRMS APIs are considered experimental. Those interfaces that are likely to change in future releases are clearly documented in the BRMS Platform API JavaDocs and are listed below by package.
org.drools.runtime.help
BatchExecutionHelperProvider 
org.drools.marshalling
MarshallerProvider 
org.drools.runtime.pipeline
ActionCorePipelineProvider
EmitterExpression
JaxbTransformerProviderJmsMessengerProvider
JoinJxlsTransformerProvider
KnowledgeRuntimeCommandPipeline
ReceiverResultHandler
ResultHandlerFactoryService
ServiceExceptionHandlerSmooksTransformerProvider
SplitterStage
StageExceptionHandlerStatefulKnowledgeSessionPipelineContext
TransformerStatelessKnowledgeSessionPipelineContext
XStreamTransformerProvider 
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-43
Imported rules have their Creation Date set to the date of import.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-19
Hot-deployment of jboss-brms.war is not supported.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-6
Odd UI behavior when creating or copying snapshots.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-11
After importing model.jar/fact classes to a package, the imported types do not appear in the UI until the package is reselected
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-58
Input fields lose focus when creating a DT via guided editor
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-64
User prompts in the UI are inconsistency implemented. Some are javascript alerts, some are produced using DHTML
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-69
Sample rules contain an unused archived package named "somethingelse"
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-72
User is presented with dialogs that include an enabled OK button in situations where it isn't value and no error is raised when it is clicked.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-73
Package description text box should be multi-line and scrollable
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-76
In the UI, packages are referred to as both "packages" and "knowledge bases"
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-77
Usage of 'cancel' buttons is inconsistent in the UI
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-85
BRMS logs DEBUG messages at INFO level when creating a new package
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-86
BRMS logs package creation, but not package archiving or deletion
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-87
Event log UI includes an "undefined" column
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-90
Sorting the log in ascending order in the Log viewer appears to display an empty log
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-91
Log viewer has a fixed horizontal size regardless of the browser size. Users are required to scroll horizontally to read the logs
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-93
Error dialogs can overlap and conceal each other from the user.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-94
Event log truncates display to 255 most recent entries
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-95
Event log does not displays adequate information for errors
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-96
Archived assets table includes "undefined" column that displays asset UUID
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-98
When exporting a repository, messages are logged as ERROR instead of DEBUG or INFO
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-100
Creating new assets such as RulesFlow can generate ugly but non-fatal error
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-111
Halting the Application Server JVM during package import leaves a corrupted package in the repository that you cannot remove
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-113
Issues with multiple concurrent users working with the same Packages
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-114
When editing a DSL Rule, one of the tool-tips specifies a unsupported key combination.
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-124
Sample decision table shipped with BRMS
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-126
Cache files in jboss-brms.war
https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/BRMS-127
If a new user is created in the BRMS Permissions UI with the same name as an existing user, the existing user is overwritten without displaying a warning or error

A. Revision History

Revision History
Revision 5.0.2-5.4002013-10-31Rüdiger Landmann
Rebuild with publican 4.0.0
Revision 5.0.2-52012-07-18Anthony Towns
Rebuild for Publican 3.0
Revision 1-0Wed May 5 2010Darrin Mison
Created for the 5.0.2 Release.

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