[rules-users] Re: Drools and BRMS (60,000+ rules)

Mon Dec 3 14:06:30 EST 2007

Hi Michael,

Yes, our biggest challenge is the design of our BRMS (rules, packages,
categories etc.). I don't think compilation times of several minutes is
a problem since we will probably compile new or modified
rules/packages/categories in a verification/staging environment for
testing before moving them to production.  Maybe we can queue
builds/tests for resource management (since it is already running in a
verification environment) so the BRMS doesn't run out of resources.  So
far, I think the performance evaluation looks pretty good with no areas
needing particular attention. We will probably know more once we have
some real use cases.

Thanks,

Len

________________________________

From: rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org
[mailto:rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org] On Behalf Of Michael Neale
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 8:24 PM
To: Rules Users List
Subject: Re: [rules-users] Re: Drools and BRMS (60,000+ rules)

Hi Len. 

Yes the main challenges I see are to do with the sheer numbers of rules
you see yourself happening, and how to manage that in any sort of BRMS.
ie are there 100's of packages, or a few uber packages etc. How do you
break it up so its manageable? etc... even simple things, like if there
is a drop down with rule names - that doesnt' scale to well to that
number of rules (in a single package). We have categories which allow
you to break down views into rules etc. 

The other side of the coin is compile time taken and memory used. Good
to see you have done some profiling of it (I saw you PDF) - I haven't
had a chance to load up your project yet but I did do some of my own
profiling. Since 4.0.3 the impact of deserialization and rule packages
has been partly addressed. 

I am worried that one rule change would require a 5 minute rebuild of an
entire package (is 5 minutes too long? I really don't know how much your
rules will change etc). On the BRMS server, we need to have some
background resource management where we control how many builds/tests
are going on so that we dont' starve the BRMS as resources (so in that
sense it becomes a bit like a CI server, where it detects changes and
then builds int he background). 

Regarding your profiling so far - nothing seems that surprising - were
there any areas that you think needed particular attention? 

Michael.

On Nov 25, 2007 6:43 AM, Carlsen, Len < len.carlsen at ubc.ca> wrote:

We would probably use the existing server side code and extent the
current BRMS client UI, to satisfy our needs.  By designing our BRMS I
mostly meant designing the structure of all our rule domains,
rules/packages and facts (courses/learning units).

Len

________________________________

From: rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org
[mailto:rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org] On Behalf Of Mark Proctor

Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 1:02 AM
To: Rules Users List
Subject: Re: [rules-users] Re: Drools and BRMS (60,000+ rules)

Carlsen, Len wrote: 

This is very cool and is exactly what we will need for our new open
source SIS. Once we have designed our BRMS then we will look more
closely at Drools Solver (especially after the ITC competition).  

Are you writting your own BRMS from scratch? Are there any particular
issues with the BRMS at the moment that would warrant this? Maybe you
could work on the BRMS we have now to extend it to satisfy your needs.

Currently, we are using Ad Astra for our course timetabling and exam
scheduling and it would be good if we could replace that with Solver.

Thanks for your interest,

Len

-----Original Message-----
From: rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org
[mailto:rules-users-bounces at lists.jboss.org] On Behalf Of Geoffrey De
Smet
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 5:09 AM
To: rules-users at lists.jboss.org
Subject: [rules-users] Re: Drools and BRMS (60,000+ rules)

Mark Proctor wrote:

	Carlsen, Len wrote:

		Other issues are the performance of the Drools Solver
and having 
		thousands of rules compiled, loaded and running. During
registration 
		we could have thousands of rules executing concurrently.
The rules 
		engine and the BRMS would be services as part of an SOA

infrastructure 

		(and an OSGi service environment).  Anyone got any
experience with 
		Drools in an OSGi environment with respect to class
loading issues 
		when compiling rules and facts from other bundles since
rules and 
		facts may be in different bundles? Bundle buddy class
loading?

	No but it is something that interests us, please give us your
OSGi 
	feedback. Solver is not currently a supported product, its very
much

R&D 

	alphaware, but I'm sure geoffrey would love your feedback, good
to see

	people are evaluating it.

yes, feedback on solver is very welcome :)

The good news is, I am now working on an example called Examination,
which is an implementation for the itc2007 examination competition:
http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/itc2007/examtrack/exam_track_index_files/exameva
luation.htm
It's based on real-world data. The "starter" dataset contains 7883 
students, 607 exams, 54 periods and 7 rooms. There are 5 hard 
constraints and 7 soft constraints:
http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/itc2007/examtrack/exam_track_index_files/exameva
luation.htm

The bad news is, it's not performing yet, because I need to make a 
scalable selector implementation, which I am working on.

There's an example called lesson schedule (which schedules courses), but

that's just a toy example to learn drools-solver, at it just has 2 hard 
constraints.

One piece of advice though: separate the solver part from the rest. Once

  the solver starts calculating, you 'll only want to have score-related

rules in the rulebase. The solver can easily do a million fireAllRules 
per minute, so every performance loss is blown up.

With kind regards,
Geoffrey De Smet

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-- 
Michael D Neale
home: www.michaelneale.net
blog: michaelneale.blogspot.com 

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