What was new in Corticon 7.0

Added in Corticon 7.0.0.2

Added or changed in Corticon 7.0

This section summarizes the features that were added or changed in Progress® Corticon® 7.0:

• New Web Console—The Web Console has been updated to provide a better user experience and improve security. The new Web Console will be readily familiar to existing users yet with an improved appearance and behavior. The third-party components used by the Web Console have been updated to address known CVEs. See the updated Web Console Guide .
• Native JSON—New in 7.0 is support for unannotated JSON payloads when calling a decision service. Previously, a JSON payload required Corticon specific annotations to allow Corticon to map a payload to the Corticon vocabulary. This complicated integration of Corticon with external applications by requiring passing JSON data in “Corticon’s format”, not the “native format” of the application. Eliminating the need for these annotations simplifies integrating Corticon with your applications. The annotations can still be provided but are optional.
• REST/XML—New in 7.0 is the ability to call decision services via REST with XML payloads. This benefits applications which utilize XML but want to call Corticon with the simplicity of REST, as opposed to SOAP. Both REST/JSON and SOAP/XML are still supported.
• Embedded Analytics—New in 7.0 is the ability to capture the details of rule execution. This enables auditing of individual decision service executions and analysis of overall decision service behavior. Corticon 7.0 provides a new extension point to Corticon Server where you can provide an analytics handler for persisting analytics data. This gives you the flexibility to store analytic data in the database and format of your choice. See How to use the Corticon Analytics Handler . A reference example of an analytics handler for persisting and reporting on analytics data in a SQL database is available.
• Snowflake Datasource—New in 7.0 is support for the popular cloud Snowflake database. Corticon 7.0 bundles a Snowflake database driver allowing use of Snowflake as a datasource with Corticon’s EDC and ADC data integration options.
• Progress Hybrid Data Pipeline—New in 7.0 is support for the Progress Hybrid Data Pipeline (HDP). HDP provides secure, centralized access to datasources. It’s a great option for decision services deployed to the cloud that need access to on-premise datasources. HDP can be used as a datasource with Corticon’s EDC and ADC data integration options. See Supported Databases .
• Export of Rule Trace Data—New in 7.0 is the ability export rule trace data from a ruletest in Corticon Studio. After running tests in Corticon Studio with rule tracing enabled, you can now export the rule trace data for analysis with tools like Microsoft Excel. This allows you to perform deeper analysis of the data and even compare the data to previous executions.
• Rule Trace Filters—New in 7.0 is the ability to filter the Rule Trace view in Corticon Studio. Ruletests can produce a large amount of trace data, making it hard to find data of interest. The Rule Trace view now allows you to filter this data to just the data of interest.
• Rule Tester Copy/Paste Clipboard—New in 7.0 is the ability in copy ruletest data to and from the Windows clipboard. When working with ruletests in Corticon Studio, you can now copy/paste ruletest data to/from the Windows clipboard in both XML and JSON format. This simplifies the creation of ruletests.
• Vocabulary Filters—New in 7.0 is the ability to filter the vocabulary view. Vocabularies can be very large, the ability to filter the vocabulary view makes it easier to find and focus on the elements of interest. For more information about the Ruletest window, see Ruletest window. .
• Expand and Collapse Vocabulary views—You can extend the Vocabulary view to show all its Entities, their Attributes, and their Associations. You can also drop the Vocabulary view down to just listing Entities.
• Vocabulary Generation Naming Conventions - When generating a vocabulary from a datasource in Corticon Studio, Corticon will now force the generated vocabulary to comply with the Corticon vocabulary naming conventions.
• Stronger Licensing Enforcement—When your Corticon Studio license expires, you are alerted at startup. Acknowledgement of the alert will exit the startup. There is no "read-only" mode. Contact your Progress Corticon representative to obtain an updated license file.
• Installer Changes—The Corticon installers now prompt for a Corticon license during installation. This is optional. If provided, Corticon will copy the license to the necessary locations based on the type of installation. In addition, the default work directories have changed to have separate default work directories for Corticon Studio and Server.
• Simplified .NET configuration—Installation of Corticon Server to IIS server now provides a folder structure that makes it easy to create multiple IIS applications that share one .NET Server. See Set up Corticon Server for .NET for multiple applications. .
• Command Line Utility Licenses—The Corticon command line utility "corticonManagement" now provides full functionality with either a Corticon Studio or Server license.
• Swagger Optional—Corticon Server no longer bundles Swagger for exploring and testing the Corticon Server REST API. Swagger is now optional and can be added to an instance of Corticon Server. See The REST API Swagger documentation for details. The use of Swagger is best limited to development deployments of Corticon Server. It is typically not needed, or wanted, in production deployments.
• Optional Service Contracts and Reports in Decision Service - Decision Service compilation no longer, by default, includes the decision service WSDL and reports in the EDS file. To include these, add the following lines to the brms.properties file:

  com.corticon.server.compile.add.wsdl=true
  com.corticon.server.compile.add.report=true.

• Java 17 - Corticon 7.0 supports Java 17. See the Corticon Supported Platform Guide for full details on supported platforms.
• Third Party Updates—Corticon 7.0 includes updates to many third party components to provide support for the latest platforms and address known CVEs.

Removed in Corticon 7.0

This section summarizes the features that are no longer supported as of Progress® Corticon® 7.0:

• Corticon Studio SOAP Execution—Corticon Studio no longer supports the use of SOAP for execution of ruletests against remote Corticon Servers. The benefit of SOAP execution was the ability to pass the test payload as XML to the remote server. With the addition of REST/XML support in 7.0, you can now pass XML via REST when running ruletests in Corticon Studio. The default is JSON. Note, this change only impacts Corticon Studio. Corticon Server’s support of SOAP execution is unchanged.
• Monitored Attributes—Corticon Web Console no longer supports the monitored attributes feature. The new 7.0 analytics feature provides greater flexibility for gaining insight into rule execution.
• database.properties—Earlier versions of Corticon Server supported the use of a database.properties file to define connection information for a database. This was superseded in Corticon 5.7 by the datasource.xml file, it provides the ability to define connection information for multiple datasources. The old database.properties option is no longer supported.
• Pre Corticon 5.5.1 CDD format—A CDD file is a manifest of decision services to be deployed to Corticon Server. It’s one of multiple options for deploying decision services. The format of CDD files changed in Corticon 5.5.1. The old format is no longer support, all CDD files must be in the latest format.
• Create Update DB Schema—Corticon Studio no longer supports the generation of a database schema from a rule vocabulary. Best practice is to generate your rule vocabulary from a database schema, this feature is unchanged.
• CDT Import—Corticon Studio no longer supports the import of enumerations into custom data types in a rule vocabulary. The CDT editor in Corticon Studio supports the pasting of one or more values into an enumeration. This can be used to populate the labels and values in a CDT enumeration.
• testServer.bat—Corticon Server no longer includes the utility testServer.bat. This provided a mechanism to run Corticon Server with a command line interface for testing Corticon Server features.
• Java 8—Corticon 7.0 does not support Java 8. Corticon 7.0 supports both Java 11 and Java 17.
• Other Platform Changes—See the Corticon Supported Platform Guide for the list or supported operating systems, databases, application servers, and more.
• Tomcat 8.5 not supported—Tomcat 8.5 will reach end-of-life in March 2024. Customers are encouraged to update to Tomcat 9.0 to ensure access to Tomcat security updates. Corticon Server bundles Tomcat 9.0.
• Installation of Corticon Studio into an existing Eclipse is no longer supported.