Xoom 3.2

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.

Other new features

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.