What's new

Highlights

Some of the major changes.

Bookmarks

General

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.1

Updated software requirements and support

This release supports the following software:

• WebSphere Application Server Liberty 24.0.0.9

Tip: Always check IBM® Operational Decision Manager detailed system requirements before installing or upgrading components.

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.0

Support for the new stand-alone IBM Decision Runtime for z/OS

Operational Decision Manager for z/OS has been spun off into a new stand-alone offering, called Decision Runtime for z/OS. Users of Operational Decision Manager for z/OS can upgrade to Decision Runtime for z/OS 9.1.0. Decision Runtime for z/OS supports integration with IBM Business Automation Insights, IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Operational Decision Manager, and IBM Machine Learning. Learn more...

Support for the stand-alone version of IBM Business Automation Insights

Monitor your Operational Decision Manager runtime events by using the stand-alone version of Business Automation Insights. It aggregate these events into business-relevant KPIs, and presents them in meaningful dashboards for lines of business to have a near real-time view on their business operations. Learn more...

Support for TLS 1.3

Operational Decision Manager now supports TLS 1.3, which has better security than TLS 1.2. For example, TLS 1.3 addresses known vulnerabilities in the TLS 1.2 handshake process. Learn more...

Deprecated and removed features

The following features are deprecated or removed in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0. For more information, see Deprecated and removed features.

Operational Decision Manager:

• Decision Warehouse (deprecated)
• Legacy ruleflow editor (deprecated)
• Java™ Management Extensions (JMX) public API for RuleApp and ruleset management in Rule Execution Server (removed)
• Intermediate code generation in the decision engine (deprecated)

Updated software requirements and support

This release supports the following software:

• Java 17
• Eclipse 4.30
• WebSphere Application Server Liberty 24.0.0.3
• Java Servlet 4.0.1

Tip: Always check IBM® Operational Decision Manager detailed system requirements before installing or upgrading components.

Operational Decision Manager Rule Designer

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.1

Improved rule analysis

Changes have been made to the tool for analyzing rules, including:

• Progress bar that shows the status of a running test
• Cancel button for stopping an analysis run
• Check result limit for rules
• Automatically saved reports

Also, the tool now allows domain violations for variables and attributes in rule conditions, and ignores conflicts between rules in tasks with an exit criteria.

Rule analysis is a feature for checking that your rule project contains consistent rules with no conflict or redundancy. Using the rule analysis feature, you can analyze your rule project to check that it contains no ambiguities or conflicts, and that no rules are missing. Learn more...

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.0

IBM Machine Learning integration

Machine Learning extracts key characteristics, patterns, and anomalies from your historical data to create predictive models. These models can be used to apply insights from your data in decision services. Learn more...

New ruleflow editor

Bringing improved features to Rule Designer, the new ruleflow editor addresses stability and interface issues in the legacy editor. It delivers a better experience for macOS users, and it is compatible with existing ruleflows. The legacy editor is also included in the component, so you can choose between the two editors. Learn more...

Operational Decision Manager Rule Execution Server

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.1

Setting the InfoRulesFiredPropertiesFilter parameter

When running a ruleset, if the rulesFired option of the decisionTraceFilter is applied, the InfoRulesFiredPropertiesFilter parameter can be used to filter the properties of the ruleInformation for the run rules. Learn more...

Cleanup endpoints in REST API

Two new REST API cleanup endpoints are available to remove libraries or XOM resources that are unused and/or in error in the Rule Execution Server repository. They use the same semantics in the Rule Execution Server console Explorer tab. A dry run parameter shows items to be deleted without deleting them. Learn more...

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.0

Generating Kafka events for failed runs

A new parameter (EmitErrorEventOnRulesetNotExecuted) in the hosted transparent decision service of Rule Execution Server emits a Kafka event when a request fails before a run takes place. Learn more...

Support for Apache Kafka

Rule Execution Server uses Apache Kafka to emit runtime event information to monitoring services. An event streaming platform, Apache Kafka is used for data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission-critical applications. Learn more...

Setting time properties

The ruleset.maxIdleTime and ruleset.decisionEngine.maxRunningTime properties can now be set globally in the system properties in the jvm.options file of the server. If this property is not set for a ruleset, the value for the property is taken from the system properties. Learn more...

Operational Decision Manager Decision Center

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.1

Improved display and filtering for test reports

The display of test execution details in test reports has been reworked. The updated display fixes the known issues in the previous display, and it is more efficient and scalable. New features include sorting by column, and expand and collapse all. It is also possible to filter out all the successful test cases and show only the failed cases. The filtering reduces the amount of information in the report by displaying only the problems that need attention. Learn more...

Improved access to decision services, releases, change activities, and work items in the Business console

The lists of decision services in the Library tab, releases and change activities in a decision service, and work items in the Work tab include new features for paginating, and sorting items in ascending or descending order by applying criteria that include name, date, and/or type. Learn more...

Property to prevent an approver from being an author in a change activity

New parameter prevents an approver from being an author in a change activity. When this setting is defined as true, an error is raised whenever the user tries to add an approver who is also an author. Learn more...

Automatic exception handling flag in the Business console

Two ruleset properties are now displayed in the Business console: Automatic exception handling in conditions and Custom exception handler. When these properties are set in a ruleset, they are displayed in the branch properties panel. Learn more...

Replacement of unload event

The unload event is deprecated in Chrome. To replace it, Decision Centernow uses pageshow and pagehide events. This change does not impact the user experience.

New REST API to manage groups and users

The Decision Center REST API has new endpoints to manage users and groups. You can list the groups and users that are defined in Decision Center, add or update a group or a user, and delete all groups or users. Learn more...

New REST API to retrieve deployment reports

A new REST API retrieves the list of deployment reports for a decision service. Learn more...

New REST API to run Decision Center diagnostics

A new REST API runs the same diagnostics in the Decision Center. Available to administrators only, it returns a JSON file that contains the same information shown in the Diagnostics view of the Business console. Learn more...

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.0

Ruleflows and variable sets in the timeline

The timeline now shows ruleflows and variables among other decision artifacts such as action rules and decision tables. You can compare older versions with newer ones, and restore them. Learn more...

Improved branch merge in the Business console

The branch merge function in Decision Center now handles changes to decision service properties such as categories, queries referenced in decision operations, dynamic XOM (schemas), and the engine mode. Learn more...

Pagination in the Library page

The Library tab is now paginated to avoid performance issues when listing many decision services. You can choose to see 10, 50 or all the decision services on one page. You can browse quickly through the pages with arrow buttons, and use the filter to search for specific decision services. The number of pages displayed is saved across sessions for each user. The maximum number of decision services that can be displayed on a single page is 500. If there are more than 500 decision services, the pagination is limited to 500. Learn more...

Database dump tool

The Decision Center DB-Dump tool can be used to export the Decision Center repository into a compressed (.zip) archive. The archive contains a JSON file for each database table. The archive can then be imported back into a Decision Center environment. It should be used when the Decision Center database is moved to a new database vendor. Customer support can also ask for the archive to investigate an issue. Learn more...

Enabling distributed caching

You can optionally enable a distributed cache to reduce the amount of information retrieved from the Decision Center database. The cache is provided by Infinispan libraries, and shared by all the Decision Center modules that are connected to the schema of the database. Learn more...

Disabling export and report tabs and commands

You can use REST API to disable the Business console UI project export and report tabs and commands through the group permissions. Learn more...

Long-running deletion without timing out

Deleting a branch or a full decision service can take a while, and can have timeout issues. The deletion process now runs in background mode. A single request is sent to initiate the deletion, and then a background process does the actual deletion. This deletion process applies to decision services and branches (regular branches, change activities, and releases). Learn more...

REST API for generating rule reports

You can generate reports based on decision services, projects, or queries. These reports show the content and properties of deployed project elements. Learn more...

Operational Decision Manager on Certified Kubernetes

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.1

Decision Server Runtime Route default annotation change

The Decision Server Runtime Route is generated with a default annotation. It has been changed from haproxy.router.openshift.io/balance: roundrobin to haproxy.router.openshift.io/balance: leastconn. Advanced performance testing shows this load-balancing algorithm provides the best results.

New samples

The developers of Operational Decision Manager on Certified Kubernetes continue to provide new samples through the GitHub IBM Operational Decision Manager (ODM) Samples for Container Environments. They include Getting started with Operational Decision Manager. The samples come with instructions and source code.

Streamlined configuration for Decision Center Business console

A new configuration method for the Decision Center Business console allows you to specify a file server URL by using the downloadURL parameter, replacing the previously used PVC-based approach, which is now deprecated. Learn more...

Defining lifecycle hooks

Operational Decision Manager containers support Kubernetes lifecycle hooks, which allow users to inject scripts that are executed at key points in a container’s lifecycle. This feature can be useful for custom initialization tasks such as preloading rulesets into the Decision Server runtime. Learn more...

Enhanced scaling with Kubernetes HPA API v2 support

Leverage the Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) API version v2, which provides enhanced scaling capabilities with support for advanced metrics and scaling policies while maintaining full compatibility with existing deployments.

Additional optional configuration parameters

More optional configuration parameters have been added. Configuration parameters are used to install ODM for production on Kubernetes. The installation is done from the Helm or Kubectl command line. The new parameters include customization for security, Liberty, downloads, and annotations for Decision Center, Decision Runner, and Decision Server console and runtime. Learn more...

New in Operational Decision Manager 9.0.0.0

HTTP access log creation for auditing purposes

Enabling Operational Decision Manager pods to generate access logs enhances observability, security, and troubleshooting. It provides detailed request records, detects security threats, and complies with regulations. This capability also aids in debugging and incident response. You can now enable access logging by uncommenting the relevant section in the configuration map. It is important to keep the access log identifier named accessLogging. See the Liberty documentation on HTTP access logging for details on how to customize the access logs. Learn more...

Monitoring of Liberty server with MicroProfile metrics compatible with Prometheus

In Kubernetes, it can be difficult to understand what is happening in Operational Decision Manager containers. When applications are observable, operations teams can identify and understand the root causes of bugs, bottlenecks, and other inefficiencies. Operational Decision Manager on Certified Kubernetes can be configured to enable Liberty MicroProfile metrics that can be used by Prometheus to monitor Operational Decision Manager usage. Learn more...

Integration with HashiCorp Vault for secrets management

Now you can integrate your containers with HashiCorp Vault, a dedicated offering for managing secrets and other sensitive data. Learn more...

Support for additional OIDC parameters

Obtain the role information from the access token/OIDC configuration, and for Liberty to send the resource parameter during the Authorization request for the Authorization Code Flow. Operational Decision Manager for production can be configured with OpenID Connect (OIDC), which is an authentication framework that is built on the OAuth 2.0 protocol. ODM servers use it to verify a user's identity with an OIDC provider, and to authorize access to the ODM applications and APIs. The servers also use it to obtain basic profile information about the user. Learn more...

New contributions on GitHub to illustrate integrations

Visit the Operational Decision Manager on Certified Kubernetes GitHub for information about deployment, monitoring and usage. New contributions are added regularly. Learn more...