New In Version 3.0

This document outlines changes since the official version 2.1 release.

Functionality

Automatic account suspension on multiple failed logons in the console

If a user attempts more than 3 invalid logins, the user account is automatically suspended and will require a reset.

New ability to pass a list of variables and their values directly into the rules engine

This new addition to configurations allow for a set of default values to be set for each start of the rules engine. Default values for empty columns in a CSV file can also be set.

Support for JSR168 Portlets

FMT Octopus now supports the handling of Portlet requests by wrapping each individual Portlet in the same was as a normal web page would be wrapped by the inline filter.

Support for SOA and AJAX

The inline filter automatically detects the presence of XML in the incoming request and decomposes the individual XML tags into more friendly variable names.

Encode console stream between Rules Engine and Console as UTF-8

This addition provides console support for double-byte character sets such as Chinese, Korean and Greek.

Added support for encoded characters in test data

This addition provides test data support for double-byte character sets such as Chinese, Korean and Greek.

Allow relative path for home folder configuration (both engine and console)

By allowing a relative path for the home folder it has become easier to create packaged stand-alone instances, such as the servers listed below.

Created stand-alone Java-only demo for Windows

This server is a low-volume, ready to run from USB drive demo server that includes the Console, the MyBank demo and a test server.

Created stand-alone feed server for Windows

This server is a fully replicable stand alone server instance that can be installed multiple times on the same server, in such a way that each instance can process data simultaneously. This server forms the basis for the FMT Octopus offline appliance.

Created stand-alone technical compatibility test server for Windows

This server contains the console application and the basic deployment components needed to perform a technical compatibility exercise. It can be launched from a USB drive to save time installing any software other than the inline filter.

Collect performance statistics for dead-end chain points

The product now collects a performance count for each “dead-end” or un-connected chain points on a rule, so it is possible to see how many times the dead-end has been reached.

Allow upload/download of configurations

Upload and download capabilities have been added for rules configurations.

Make cookies optional in Tracker rule

The HTTP Session Tracker rule now has the ability to turn cookies off if required.

Do not write empty variables to test data and data packet

To improve memory consumption, empty variables will no longer be carried around on the data packet and will not be stored in test data.

Created “Alert on failure” email ability

The ability to send an email to an administrator in the case of an internal failure in the rules engine has been added.

Made “Fail Open” optional through configuration

It is now possible to configure the inline filter to survive an internal failure and auto-recover.

Created “Echo console to System Log” option for configurations

For performance reasons, it may not always be desirable to automatically output a copy of the information sent to the console to the application server’s system console. Therefore this feature has now been made optional.

Send error messages to server and make server output formatted error messages

In the past error messages on the server side would simply output the error code. This has been improved to now include properly formatted error messages in the default rules language.

New rules

Alias

The Alias rule is used with SOA and AJAX data to simplify the rule writing for tags in deep XML documents.

Crash

The Crash rule forces an internal failure in the rules engine. It is used for testing the email alerting feature of the product.

Fail Safe

The FailSafe rule is capable of detecting an internal failure an make a decision on how to proceed. It can also ensure recovery if desired.

SMTP Email

The SMTP Email rule is capable of sending an email to any number of recipients using the SMTP server defined for crash alerting.

HTTP Header Reader

The HTTP Header Reader is capable of reading any header encapsulated in a HTTP request. This is mainly useful to read information added by proxy servers.

Changes to look and feel

Added icons in front of links on main page Created icon buttons (picture and text) for all major tasks Allowed sliding/dragable console window sizes Changed “save rules” and “regular expressions tool” into icons Added cut, copy and paste icons to rules editor Changed green dot in rules editor into something more “rounded” Masked JDBC driver password

Bug fixes

Rules engine menu missing if extension not installed for rule set that use it. Value Comparer makes comparing to a Variable incorrect under certain conditions. Fix spelling error in rules manifest. Ignore rules sets with no “first rule”. Fix the return of a null parameter from a request that has been stored in the session Allow spaces in deployed server path Make sure that the portlet API is optional for a deployment Under certain conditions filter did not fail open

Main Documentation changes

Include information on filter jar file and using shared lib for rules engine Portal configuration documentation Documentation of all new rules Documentation of SOA and AJAX Document test page creation (for “pinging”) Documentation on setting up SMTP server Documentation section on failure handling Added extension files information to rules reference Added group information to rules reference