What’s New in

IBM Operational Decision Manager 8.9.2

—
March 2018
Updated on April 30, 2018

© 2018 IBM Corporation

IBM ODM 8.9.2 Release highlights
Develop Increase adoption Easier to sell
new opportunities with self service product
on private clouds access

Commercial Free ODM for Product offering

offering for IBM Developers simplification
Cloud Private

© 2018 IBM Corporation Released on March 23, 2018 2

Why is ODM 8.9.2 coming soon after ODM 8.9.1 ?

ODM 8.9.1 was released in November 2017

For existing on-prem customers, ODM 8.9.2 is effectively a fix pack:

– Mainly includes fixes
– Fully compatible with 8.9.1
– Incremental installer from 8.9.x to 8.9.2 also available on FixCentral

A mod version (8.9.2) was needed to simplify the product structure and do the corresponding update to
the part numbers.

© 2018 IBM Corporation 3

Product Offering
Simplification

© 2018 IBM Corporation 4

Simplification of product offering (& ordering)

ODM 8.9.1 and previous ODM 8.9.2

Decision Server Standard

Non Production
Decision Server Advanced ODM Server
Production
Decision Center

Decision Server Express

Non Production
ODM Server Express
Decision Center Express Production

© 2018 IBM Corporation 5

Outcome of simplification

Automatic entitlement to the new products for existing customers

New flexibility to allocate PVUs across ODM Server components

– Assuming you’re using ODM 8.9.2. Not applicable to previous releases

No change to the technical product structure

– For on-prem customers: same installers for Decision Center, Decision Server Rules, Decision Server
Insights

© 2018 IBM Corporation 6

Comparing ODM Server and ODM Server Express

Components ODM Server ODM Server

Express
Decision Center 
MAX 420 PVU per
Decision Server Rules  site

Decision Server Insights 

Commercial offering on ICP 
PureApplication pattern Deprecated

© 2018 IBM Corporation 7

What About ODM for z/OS ?

No change to the product structure

Simplifications already occurred in the past with the removal of Insights and Decision Center on z/OS

One Single PID 5655-Y31 : Operational Decision Manager Standard for z/OS

© 2018 IBM Corporation 8

ODM on IBM Cloud Private
&
ODM for Developers

© 2018 IBM Corporation 9

IBM Cloud Private Overview

Streamline development with built-in microservices, runtimes, containers and Kubernetes orchestration
plus integrated management

An integrated platform consisting of the IaaS, PaaS, and developer services necessary to create, run, and
manage cloud applications

An important offering for delivering modernized IBM middleware and data services to enterprise
customers

IBM Cloud Private

Multi-cloud
Infrastructure Data & Analytics Services Service Core Services
IAM Logging Audit API & Data
Connect
Catalog
Kubernetes Databases Analytics CAM Encryption & Key Monitoring Usage
Management Event Metering Tenant Svcs

© 2018 IBM Corporation 10

2 flavors of ODM 8.9.2 on IBM Cloud Private

A new commercial offering: ODM on IBM Cloud Private (ICP)

– Provided as Docker images and a Kubernetes Helm chart with ODM Server 8.9.2
– Production ready, with full IBM support
– A new pricing option, best suited for containers: Virtual Processor Core (VPC) Monthly

A new free edition: ODM for Developers

– For development and evaluation purposes only
– Automatically visible in ICP catalog for all ICP users
– Also available outside ICP as a Docker image

© 2018 IBM Corporation 11

How to get and install ODM on ICP (commercial offering)
ODM Server Components:
Sync repositories to
Import the ODM PPA archive refresh catalog
into ICP

Archive in ODM Server 8.9.2

Passport Advantage ICP Helm repositories Ibm-odm-prod
In ICP catalog
Contains:
- Production Docker images
- Production Helm chart

ODM Rule Designer: Rule Designer

Eclipse Plugins on

© 2018 IBM Corporation 12

ODM on ICP, for production

Helm chart referencing ODM Docker images • Production grade Docker images
• Helm chart to configure one or many Helm releases:
Dev / QA / Pre-prod / Prod… environments
Decision Center

Decision Runner

Rule Execution Server

Console

Rule Execution Server

Runtime Rule Designer
Eclipse Plugins on

ODM Server Components

© 2018 IBM Corporation 13
Creation of a full ODM topology on ICP
Rule Development

Helm chart referencing ODM Docker images

Test
Decision Center

Creation of
Decision Runner
environments Prod
(Helm releases)

Rule Execution Server

Console

Rule Execution Server

Runtime

© 2018 IBM Corporation 14

Configuration of ODM on ICP, for production

For each Helm release, select and configure

the ODM components to instantiate
(one Docker instance per component)

Select the ibm-odm-prod chart

to create a Helm release
(Rule development, QA, pre-prod, prod, etc.)

© 2018 IBM Corporation 15

Example of an ODM Helm release

Helm release details

ODM services
created in that release
© 2018 IBM Corporation 16
ODM Pricing and Metering on ICP

New pricing option added in ODM 8.9.2:

VPC (Virtual Processor Core) monthly subscription
– Max number for cores allocated to ODM containers in ICP
– Distinction between Production and Non-production environments

ODM core metering in ICP,

with “Capped Processors”
metric

© 2018 IBM Corporation 17

Free ODM for Developers, for all Docker fans

Making it easy for any developer to evaluate and develop decision services with ODM

Single Docker image on Docker Hub

https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/odm/

Decision Center
Rule Designer
Decision Runner Eclipse Plugins on

Rule Execution Server

Console
Rule Execution Server
Runtime

© 2018 IBM Corporation 18

ODM for Developers available in ICP catalog

ODM for Developers is

automatically displayed
in the ICP catalog

© 2018 IBM Corporation 19

What’s included in
ODM on ICP and ODM for Developers

Focus on ‘happy path’, with support for:

- Decision service projects only
Decision Center
- Decision engine only
Decision Runner
- Decision invocation through web service only

Only with the following supported databases:

Rule Execution Server - ODM on ICP: PostgreSQL or DB2
Console
- ODM for Developers: H2 or PostgreSQL
Rule Execution Server
Runtime

Rule Designer

© 2018 IBM Corporation 20

What’s NOT included or supported in
ODM on ICP and ODM for Developers
Deprecated features for ODM on-prem:
– Classic rule projects and Decision Validation Services
– Classic rule engine

Decision Center or RES customizations that require repackaging of the WAR file
– Due to Docker approach

Other features not included or supported:

– Build Command
– Sample Console in Rule Designer
– RES invocation through Java or EJB rule session API
– Custom permissions on decision services through the Enterprise Console

© 2018 IBM Corporation 21

Samples and Tutorials

New ODM samples and tutorials are published on https://odmdev.github.io/#/odm

– For ODM on ICP and other ODM products

New tutorial:
– Getting Started for ODM on ICP

And also:
– ODM on Cloud tutorial: Debugging a decision service
– Samples and contributions to facilitate RPA - ODM integration
– Contributions for Decision Server Insights

© 2018 IBM Corporation 22

Other targeted improvements
in ODM 8.9.2

© 2018 IBM Corporation 23

Improvements in Decision Center

Use the archiving tool with confidence

– Improved documentation and internal improvements

Business Console enhancements

– User can move a rule folder within a decision service
– User can better compare test results including collections, with a redesigned UI

Enable non-admin users to publish a decision service from Rule Designer to Decision Center
– Not activated by default

New tutorial on how to manage user access with LDAP

© 2018 IBM Corporation 24

Expand RES Java SE usage to new use cases

Load and execute ruleApps with RES API, but without requiring file or DB persistence
– Use RES XU with a new in-memory persistence
– RES Java SE reads a ruleApp from classpath or URL.
– No need to use anymore lower level rule engine API

Benefits:
– Easily embed rule execution capability into Hadoop / Spark grids, or Jupyter notebooks
– Deploy Java based decision micro services
• Self contained WAR file with application code and rules in it

Samples:
– RES JSE execution stack with a memory persistence here
– ODM decisions on Spark: https://github.com/ODMDev/decisions-on-spark

© 2018 IBM Corporation 25

Platforms updates in ODM 8.9.2

Added:
– IBM Cloud Private 2.1.0.2
– OS:
• Ubuntu 16.04
• AIX 7.2
– Databases:
• PostgreSQL 9.6
• Db2 12 for Z
• H2 (not for production)
– Hypervisors:
• KVM 6.5
• ESXi 6.5

Deprecated: ODM Pattern

• Still shipped and supported in ODM 8.9.2
• Suggested replacement: ODM on IBM Cloud Private

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In summary

© 2018 IBM Corporation 27

IBM Decision Management product family
ODM Server

ODM on Cloud ODM for ODM Server Business ODM Standard

Developers Express Event for z/OS
Management
Business
Rule
Management Business Rules Low entry cost Business rule
on the Business
Management for Business Rule management on
IBM cloud Docker’s fan
Rule
Management z/OS
platform Management

Business level rule

management     Via ODM
Server

Situation detection 
On-premises    z/OS
Cloud managed service

IBM Cloud Private (ICP)  
Pricing model Usage Free PVU / RVU MSU/CBP(*)
PVU / RVU
(Monthly For evaluation and
subscription) VPC (ICP only)
development only

(*): Container Based Pricing for z/OS

For more information

ODM 8.9.2 Knowledge Center

ODM 8.9.x Technotes

ODM announcements (March 13, 2018):

– Main ODM 8.9.2 announcement letter
– Related announcement for software withdrawal and support discontinuance

Latest ODM news on the ODM Developer Center

© 2018 IBM Corporation 29

© 2018 IBM Corporation 30