Managing Administrative Tasks with Business Rules Management

Use

First Steps

SAP Business Rules Management is part of SAP Composition Environment and comes as a separate usage type. Within SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS), Rules Composer comes as a different perspective that you can use to define, create, and test business rules. Rules deployed on the server can be managed using a web dynpro application called Rules Manager .

SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio also offers rules integrated as part of the process composer. Business rules created using process composer can be used within a given process development component.

This section provides information on the administration and maintenance of SAP Business Rules Management.

Tools

SAP Business Rules Management does not offer any specific tools for administration and monitoring the rule engine components. The rule engine is an EJB component that is deployed on the SAP NetWeaver Application Server - Java. Therefore, the standard administration and monitoring tools available with the SAP NetWeaver Administrator (NWA) in SAP NetWeaver AS Java must be used. More information : Administration and Monitoring sections of AS Java (Application Server for Java)

Tasks

The administration and monitoring tasks for SAP Business Rules Management are performed when required or at regular intervals. The following task groups might occur:

  1. Monitoring : There are no specific monitoring tools that are provided for Business Rules Management. Monitoring will be accomplished using the tools available with SAP NetWeaver Administrator. For more information, see Monitoring section of AS Java (Application Server for Java)

  2. Administration : There are no specific administration tools provided for SAP Business Rules Management. Administration (for instance, setting of environment entry values that can impact the rule engine execution) can be set using standard mechanism in SAP NetWeaver Administrator.

    For more information, see Application Management

    SAP NetWeaver Administrator also provides standard tools to view business logs and technical traces. Other tasks that can be administered are:

    1. Start and Stop of Rule Engine : The rule engine is a simple EJB component that is deployed at the time of installation of SAP Composition Environment. Once deployed, it will appear with other AS Java EJB modules. It can be stopped and restarted like any other Java EE application. For more information, see Starting and Stopping the Application Server Java (AS Java)

    2. Availability : Availability of the rule engine can also be checked using SAP NetWeaver Administrator, just like it is done for other Java EE applications.

      • In order to see if the rule engine is up and running, you choose Start of the navigation pathConfiguration Management Next navigation step Infrastructure Next navigation step Application Modules End of the navigation path function.

      • To view the rule engine module from here, select an EJB module from the Modules List area and search for *brm* module name.

      • In EJB module details, you can view the name and type of the bean, its availability, the method transactions, and permissions (if any). For more information, see Viewing and Editing EJB Modules .

    3. Changing Environment Entry values : The values of the rule engine environment entries can be changed without having to stop and undeploy the entire application. To do this, you select the required EJB module in Environment & References tab and enter the new value in the General tab under Full Details .

      Environment entry is a configuration parameter used to customize an enterprise bean's business logic. For more information, see Viewing and Editing EJB Modules .

    4. Backup and Restore : The rule engine is a stateless session bean. It can be backed up and restored using standard SAP NetWeaver AS for Java tools. SAP Business Rules Management data is stored in the database, and the standard database archiving and backup tools can be used to archive data.

    5. Tracing and Logging : The rule engine captures technical traces in a trace file. The execution stack trace of a ruleset is captured as business logs.

      • Logging and Tracing : Since SAP Business Rules Management engine is a simple EJB component deployed on the SAP NetWeaver AS for Java, it uses the standard Logging and Tracing framework of SAP AS. SAP Business Rules Management engine records all logs and traces in the default logs files of SAP AS that can be viewed using the Log Viewer in SAP NetWeaver Administrator.

        Logging : SAP Business Rules Management engine logs in to the following category: /Applications/brms/engine . This category captures all the exceptions thrown during execution of the BRM engine code.

        Tracing : SAP Business Rules Management engine also records the traces as per standard format. The engine traces into the following locations com.sap.brms.* .

        For more information, see Log Viewer

      • Business Logging : SAP Business Rules Management engine also creates business logs which capture the execution stack trace information for a ruleset. When a ruleset is invoked, certain events are triggered - such as network building, object assertion etc. Information about these events is logged in business logs. These logs can be used for further analysis, audit trail etc. SAP Business Rules Management uses Galaxy Business Logging Framework for creation of the business logs. Business logs can be viewed by logging on to SAP NetWeaver Administrator and navigating to the following path: Start of the navigation pathProblem Management  Next navigation step  Processes and Tasks Next navigation step Rules Business LogsEnd of the navigation path . All the events relating to a single invocation are logged against one unique ID for easy access.

    6. Troubleshooting : For more information on how to troubleshoot common problem scenarios, see the SAP Business Rules Management Problem Analysis Scenari .