Two tools help you analyze and troubleshoot your BusinessEvents projects: Rule Analyzer and Rule Debugger. These tools are provided in an application called BusinessEvents Tools, which runs independently. You can start the application from within TIBCO Designer or at the command line. You can switch between Rule Debugger and Rule Analyzer when you are using the BusinessEvents tools application.
Rule Analyzer lets you check the structure of a project before you build its EAR and deploy it. You can examine several projects in Rule Analyzer simultaneously, using a tabbed interface. Unlike Rule Debugger, Rule Analyzer does not work with facts, just with the ontology.
Rule Debugger has all the features of Rule Analyzer, except some filtering and viewing features. Rule Debugger has additional features that enable you to examine a BusinessEvents application in action. By providing test data to the running application, you can examine its facts and behavior, as well as its ontology.
Rule Debugger works against EAR files that contain one or more BusinessEvents archives. You can work with several projects. Each Rule Debugger session corresponds to one engine. Similarly, for projects that use multiple rule sessions, you can view each rule session using tabs.
Central to the Rule Analyzer and Rule Debugger tools are the graphs generated for each BusinessEvents project that you open. Each graph summarizes possible rule evaluation paths based on assertion of facts into working memory.
The graphs show the relationships between ontology entities (concepts, events, scorecards, and rules) using color-coded shapes and various kinds of linking lines. You can click each object in a graph to view its properties and other information in different panels of the user interface.
In Rule Analyzer (but not Rule Debugger), you can also display (or hide) class diagram relationships between entities in the graph, and you can display state machine graphs. You can filter the graph to focus on a subset of entities.
Many layout styles are available for graphs. It is recommended that you try different layouts until you find the ones that render the structure of your BusinessEvents projects most clearly.
Users who are familiar with BusinessEvents rules can use the graphs (and associated information) to follow the logic of rule execution and find areas for improvement. Users who are less familiar with the product can learn more by close examination of the graphs.
Using Rule Analyzer, you can make changes in the project and view the results before deploying the project. Working with Rule Analyzer can reveal useful information such as the following:
Rule Debugger shows you how a deployed BusinessEvents application will behave in response to data. It shows potential problems in execution of rules. You can run without pausing, or in step mode.
When you run Rule Debugger in step mode, you can examine the current state of the rule engine at each rule execution. You can see information about the facts related to the rule. You can see the context of the rule execution—which rules have already fired, and which are going to fire (given the current evaluation). Step mode can be used as a learning tool, as well as a diagnostic tool.
Rule Debugger can use any project archive (EAR) that contains a BusinessEvents archive. The EAR file can be local or on a remote machine accessible through the file system.