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Chapter 25. Release Notes

25.1. jBPM 6.2
25.1.1. New and Noteworthy in jBPM 6.2.0
25.1.2. New and Noteworthy in KIE Workbench 6.2.0
25.2. jBPM 6.1
25.2.1. New and Noteworthy in jBPM 6.1.0
25.2.2. New and Noteworthy in KIE Workbench 6.1.0
25.3. jBPM 6.0
25.3.1. New and Noteworthy in KIE API 6.0.0
25.3.2. New and Noteworthy in jBPM 6.0.0
25.3.3. New and Noteworthy in KIE Workbench 6.0.0
25.3.4. New and Noteworthy in Integration 6.0.0

The following features were added to the jBPM core on top of 6.1.

  1. Lazy initialization of runtime engine components by RuntimeManager to make runtime engine creation lightweight

    RuntimeEngine has been enhanced to lazy initialize its components (KieSession, TaskService, AuditService) to improve overall performance of retriveing RuntimeEngine instances from RuntimeManager.

  2. Life cycle management for work item handlers and event listeners

    Handler and listeners can implement additional interface to be managed by runtime engine, see work item handler life cycle management for more details.

  3. Deployments are now by default stored in data base (as deployment descriptors) to servive server restarts

    Prior to verion 6.2 deployments that were handled by DeploymentService implementation were not persisted so they required to be handled separately - in case of kie-workbench they were stored inside system.git repo. With version 6.2 deployment service will persist that information directly into db which will make it easier in many cases including clustering as it will not require VFS clustering (Zookeeper and Helix) setup.

  4. Extension to deployment descriptor to specify classes (by FQCN) that should be added to JAXB context for remote interfaces interaction

    Deployment descriptor accept new set of elements

    <remoteable-classes>
       ...
       <remotable-class>org.jbpm.test.CustomClass</remotable-class>
       ...
    </remoteable-classes>

  5. Classpath scanning for classes to be included in JAXB context for remote interfaces interaction

    Classes annotated with javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement and org.kie.api.remote.Remotable will be automatically added to JAXB context of given deployment as soon as they are defined as project dependency. At the same time all classes included in project itself are also added to deployment's JAXB context.

  6. jbpm executor has been enhanced to provide support for:

    • requeue failed jobs so they can be executed once the error that caused them to is resolved.

    • reoccuring jobs that allows single definition to be repeatedly invoked based on time intervals, e.g. daily jobs to clean up history log tables. See this article for details and example.

  7. CRON support for intermediate and boundary timer events

  8. Enhanced support for multi instance activities to support completion condition as MVEL expression

jBPM 6.1 comes with a ton of smaller improvements and bug fixes (done over the last few months on top of 6.0.1.Final), and also includes some important new features, adding to the foundation delivered as part of jBPM 6.0.

The execution engine itself has (mostly) remained the same, although we've done various improvements in the following areas:

The task service has been refactored significantly as well, and the TaskService APIs have been moved to the public kie-api. Although the TaskService interfaces themselves haven't changed a lot, the internal implementation has been simplified. Auditing for the task-related operations (similar to the runtime engine auditing) has been added.

By default, a local task service will always be used by a ksession to perform various task-related operations (creating a task, being notified when a task is completed). Setting up a remote singleton task service and connecting multiple ksessions to this (using Mina or HornetQ) as was possible in jBPM5 is no longer possible, as it introduces more challenges that it brings advantages. Since the jBPM execution service now also provides a remote API for all task-related operations, we believe this setup is no longer necessary, and has been replaced by the use of a local task service in all use cases.

The workbench has had a big overhaul using a new base project called UberFire. UberFire is inspired by Eclipse and provides a clean, extensible and flexible framework for the workbench. The end result is not only a richer experience for our end users, but we can now develop more rapidly with a clean component based architecture. If you like he Workbench experience you can use UberFire today to build your own web based dashboard and console efforts.

As well as the move to a UberFire the other biggest change is the move from JCR to Git; there is an utility project to help with migration. Git is the most scalable and powerful source repository bar none. JGit provides a solid OSS implementation for Git. This addresses the continued performance problems with the various JCR implementations, which would slow down once the number of files and number of versions become too high. There has been a big "low tech" drive, to remove complexity. Everything is now stored as a file, including meta data. The database is only there to provide fast indexing and search. So importing and exporting is all standard Git and external sites, like GitHub, can be used to exchange repositories.

In 5.x developers would work with their own source repository and then push JCR, via the team provider. This team provider was not full featured and not available outside Eclipse. Git enables our repository to work any existing Git tool or team provider. While not yet supported in the UI, this will be added over time, it is possible to connect to the repo and tag and branch and restore things.


The Guvnor brand leaked too much from its intended role; such as the authoring metaphors, like Decision Tables, being considered Guvnor components instead of Drools components. This wasn't helped by the monolithic projects structure used in 5.x for Guvnor. In 6.0 Guvnor 's focus has been narrowed to encapsulates the set of UberFire plugins that provide the basis for building a web based IDE. Such as Maven integration for building and deploying, management of Maven repositories and activity notifications via inboxes. Drools and jBPM build workbench distributions using Uberfire as the base and including a set of plugins, such as Guvnor, along with their own plugins for things like decision tables, guided editors, BPMN2 designer, human tasks.

The "Model Structure" diagram outlines the new project anatomy. The Drools workbench is called KIE-Drools-WB. KIE-WB is the uber workbench that combines all the Guvnor, Drools and jBPM plugins. The jBPM-WB is ghosted out, as it doesn't actually exist, being made redundant by KIE-WB.


Important

KIE Drools Workbench and KIE Workbench share a common set of components for generic workbench functionality such as Project navigation, Project definitions, Maven based Projects, Maven Artifact Repository. These common features are described in more detail throughout this documentation.

The two primary distributions consist of:

  • KIE Drools Workbench

    • Drools Editors, for rules and supporting assets.

    • jBPM Designer, for Rule Flow and supporting assets.

  • KIE Workbench

    • Drools Editors, for rules and supporting assets.

    • jBPM Designer, for BPMN2 and supporting assets.

    • jBPM Console, runtime and Human Task support.

    • jBPM Form Builder.

    • BAM.

Workbench highlights:

  • New flexible Workbench environment, with perspectives and panels.

  • New packaging and build system following KIE API.

    • Maven based projects.

    • Maven Artifact Repository replaces Global Area, with full dependency support.

  • New Data Modeller replaces the declarative Fact Model Editor; bringing authoring of Java classes to the authoring environment. Java classes are packaged into the project and can be used within rules, processes etc and externally in your own applications.

  • Virtual File System replaces JCR with a default Git based implementation.

    • Default Git based implementation supports remote operations.

    • External modifications appear within the Workbench.

  • Incremental Build system showing, near real-time validation results of your project and assets.

The editors themselves are largely unchanged; however of note imports have moved from the package definition to individual editors so you need only import types used for an asset and not the package as a whole.