Add a Cluster Deployment Descriptor and Build the EAR File
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Add a Cluster Deployment Descriptor and Build the EAR File

To deploy a project you need a CDD file and an EAR file. The CDD is not included in the project's EAR. This means you can reconfigure a project’s deployment configuration without having to rebuild the EAR.

What is an EAR? The Enterprise Archive or EAR file contains details for all the resources in a project, and project global variables. It also contains any Java code that was added to the project.

What is a CDD? The project’s deployment configuration is defined in an XML file called the Cluster Deployment Descriptor, or CDD. You edit this file using the TIBCO BusinessEvents® Extreme Studio Cluster Deployment Descriptor editor.

How do I set up preprocessors and startup and shutdown rule functions? The CDD is where you configure rule functions to act as event preprocessors, startup rule functions, or shutdown rule functions. Only rule functions whose Validity setting is Action are valid for these uses. (These rule functions cannot require anything to be in their scope, because they execute outside of the context of the Rete network and TIBCO BusinessEvents® Extreme project resources.) A preprocessor is associated with a destination. It processes events arriving at that destination.

What is an inference agent? An agent does certain work within a JVM. Inference agents listen for messages arriving at destinations, and transform them into events. The events trigger rules, using the agent’s Rete network and forward chaining, and the inference agent executes the rules.

[Note]

In TIBCO BusinessEvents® Extreme Application Developer’s Guide, see these chapters:

  • Cluster Deployment Descriptor (CDD)

  • Agent and Processing Unit Configuration

Add and Configure a CDD

  1. In TIBCO BusinessEvents® Extreme Studio Explorer, right click the project name, FraudDetection, and select New > Cluster Deployment Descriptor. You see the New Cluster Configuration Wizard.

    You can create multiple CDD files for a project and at deploy time use the one that has the configuration you want to use.

  2. In the File name field, type FraudDetection and click Next.

    Unlike other project resources, you can change the name later as desired.

  3. In the Object Management dialog, select Cache from the Object Management Type drop-down list. Then click Finish. The cluster configuration page appears.

  4. Click the Collections tab, and do the following:

    1. Select Input Destinations and click Add.

    2. In the Input Destinations Collection field, type HTTP and again click Add.

    3. In the Select Input Destinations dialog, select /Channels/HTTP/AllOperations and click OK. A Configuration panel appears.

    4. In the Input Destination ID field, edit the identifier to read AllOperations.

    5. In the Preprocessor field, select /RuleFunctions/PreProcessor and then click OK.

      Now this preprocessor will act on events arriving at the AllOperations destination.

    The Configuration panel looks like this:

    Collections enable you to create resources you can reuse when configuring multiple agent classes. Collections are used here to demonstrate the feature. In simple projects, you could simply configure the agent class without using collections.

  5. Select the Agent Classes tab to display the default agent class, which is called inference-class.

    When configuring an agent class, you can select a subset of the project rules, select and configure destinations, and select startup and shutdown rule functions. Thus different agent classes can behave quite differently at runtime.

  6. Select inference-class.

  7. Check the Enable Concurrent RTC check box.

  8. Select Input Destination Collections and click Add. You see the Select Input Destinations dialog. In the Reference Collections area, select HTTP and click OK.

    As mentioned above, you can configure input destinations here, or link to input destinations configured in the Collections tab—or use both methods. Here we reference the collection you already defined.

  9. Save and close the CDD.

Build the EAR File

  1. In TIBCO BusinessEvents® Extreme Studio Explorer, highlight the project name, then from the top menu select Project > Build Enterprise Archive.

    If you see a message asking you to save all project resources, click Yes. It means an unsaved resource editor is open.

  2. In the File Location field, browse to and select the directory above the project directory.

  3. Click Save.

  4. Click Apply, then click OK. You see messages as the EAR file builds, then you see a message that the EAR file has built correctly:

Summary and Next Steps

Congratulations! You are ready to deploy the FraudDetection project.

The next chapter discusses how to start server nodes to host the FraudDetection project and how to deploy the project to the nodes. It then provides details on injecting events into the deployed project to execute the rules you built.

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