[rules-dev] Package based import/export in Guvnor

[Jervis Liu]

Anstis, Michael (M.) wrote:
> If the use-case of migrating packages through the environments holds 
> true I'd expect the meta-data associated with packages to remain constant.
>  
> Perhaps I've made an assumption that you don't have categories called 
> "Production rules", "QA rules" etc.
>  
> Thinking wider; is there a requirement to allow export\import to be 
> sliced and diced many different ways:-
>
>    *
>       Export\import a category
>    *
>       Export\import a package
>    *
>       Export\import working set
>    *
>       etc
>
>
The thing is that there are lots of external dependencies associated 
with a package and package assets. To name a new, category, status (Dev, 
QA, STAGE, PROD), permissions, comments etc.The list will grow bigger 
and bigger when new features get implemented as long as the data 
structure required by these features are  not internal to a package. So 
far we've figured one possible way that might solve the problem: when we 
do package export, we export a data bundle that contains the package and 
all essential data associated with this package (eg, category nodes, 
status nodes etc). And when we do the import, we somehow deal with dirty 
data programmatically (recover or discard the dirty data).

This is doable, but is this a practical approach? I would imagine a 
single package data exported may contains over 60% data of that 
repository. Not to mention the complexity of dealing with dirty data 
during package import.
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* rules-dev-bounces at lists.jboss.org
>     [mailto:rules-dev-bounces at lists.jboss.org] *On Behalf Of *Michael
>     Neale
>     *Sent:* 06 August 2010 08:00
>     *To:* Rules Dev List
>     *Subject:* Re: [rules-dev] Package based import/export in Guvnor
>
>     well for category things - it could be that if a category doesn't
>     exist in the target "space" then it is created, if not, it is
>     used. There are other things though, which are interlinked - but
>     the same issue you bring up applies (which is why this wasn't done
>     a while back). 
>
>     So a simple JCR partial export won't really do - needs to be a bit
>     more programmatic than that. 
>
>     The question is - in the target space - do we want to create the
>     missing things, or remove the links from them as part of the
>     export etc... 
>
>     So if RuleA depends on categoryX and categoryY, but only categoryX
>     (same name) exists in the target place, then do we create
>     categoryY there, or strip it? 
>
>     On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Jervis Liu <jliu at redhat.com
>     <mailto:jliu at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>         Hi,
>
>         I am currently evaluating a Guvnor feature request which is to
>         implement
>         package based import/export. The idea is to use this feature
>         to move a
>         rule package from the DEV repo to QA to Stage to the Prod
>         repo. For
>         details please check https://jira.jboss.org/browse/GUVNOR-311. My
>         initial investigation shows that it is not possible to do a single
>         package import/export technically. A single package in Guvnor
>         repository
>         is never a self-contained unit. For example, every asset under the
>         package has a mandatory attribute which is a reference link to
>         category
>         information. In short, package can not be exported/imported as
>         long as
>         it contains references to entities outside package.
>
>         There are two things I would like to ask for your opinions.
>         Firstly, can
>         you think of any way to implement this import/export feature?
>         Personally
>         I dont see how this can be done. This is similar to relational
>         database,
>         generally it is impossible to export and import data from/to a
>         single
>         non-isolated table in database. Or sometimes it is possible
>         but with
>         extensive care normally involved in manual work to deal with
>         dirty data.
>         In our case, one example of dirty data is category, but what
>         can we do
>         with category information, we discard package information when
>         we do
>         package export?
>
>         Secondly, if such feature can not be implemented, can we
>         figure out a
>         different way to help users to better manage the life cycle in
>         Guvnor?
>         The current version of Guvnor is not very strong on this part
>         yet. If
>         you are a Guvnor user or you have experience of using similar
>         products,
>         how did you manage and how do you want to manage the lifecycle
>         of assets
>         in your repository?
>
>
>         Thanks,
>
>         Jervis
>
>
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>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     Michael D Neale
>     home: www.michaelneale.net <http://www.michaelneale.net>
>     blog: michaelneale.blogspot.com <http://michaelneale.blogspot.com>
>
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