This significant release contains a major new command line tool, some other new features
and also maintenance changes, such as bug fixes, stability improvements and improvements in the
coverage of Service Optimization features.
Xoom Processor
We have introduced a very exciting and powerful new command line tool called
Xoom Processor
(
xp.exe). The tool has the following main capabilities:
- The tool introduces a new standard way of storing configuration into a folder
structure containing individual XoomXML files for each individual item. This is
particularly useful in configuration versioning. Instead of searching for changes in
configuration, you can find specific changes by simpy looking at the log file.
- The tool can transparently read configuration from a live Xoom server, a
XoomXML file or a Xoom folder. It can also write results one or more targets of any
of these three types.
- The first basic operation that it supports is transformation of
configuration (or the result of a previous transformation) using an XSLT. This can be
used for automation of reporting with minimum strain on the server, as well as for building
more complex automation workflows where configuration is transformed
in a certain way and then applied elsewhere.
- The second basic operation that the tool supports is combining configuration. It
supports scenarios such as automatic integration of features from two different development
sources that have a clear division of responsibilities. Features can be automatically
integrated and stored for later or applied immediately to an integration system.
- The third basic operation determines the relative complement of one configuration
and another. This results in a minimum XoomXML file, which is to say, the minimum
required to go from one configuration to another.
- The tool is used for building workflows, where configuration can be taken from
various sources, transformed in various ways using the three basic operations,
and stored in different forms or applied to live Xoom servers from any stage of the
workflow.
Improvements/changes
- Data-entries for custom logic components are now handled much more robustly. When
configuration is not explicit and multiple matches have been identified, Xoom no
longer just takes the first match. Instead, it lists all the potential matches in
XoomDataEntries.xml but doesn't use any of them as there is no way to know
for sure: the first match could be wrong and taking it might result in erroneous configuration
representation. This hasn't been a problem in the past, but with an increasing number of logic
customisations we decided to take a more cautious attitude on this issue.
- We've also improved the way changes to the configuration of custom logic
components are distributed, allowing for the changes to be automatically incorporated without
worrying what was left in the installation directory after the last uninstallation.
- Full coverage of the extended match rule expressiveness in Service Optimization 8+ in all its
combinations has been added.
- ClickAnalyze reports are now part of the standard default query, resulting in their capture
when using the auto capture tool on a generic Xoom installation.
- Data-entry mappings are now always included in corpora, resulting in better
environment capture for customisation and support purposes.
- A number of new interpretations of new Service Optimization features.
Bug fixes
- Groups with index criteria are now interpreted slightly differently in versions 7.5 and 8,
just as they are in Service Optimization.
- A couple of fixes to the interpretations that caused unwarranted bad references to
appear under certain circumstances.
- Incomplete corpora can now be used for reconstruction despite incomplete capture
and therefore missing information. The capabilities degrade graciously, taking advantage of as
much information as there happens to be available.