Flux Blogs

R.I.P. flux.Factory

david — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:45:14 GMT

Eight years ago, I wrote the first version of Flux's Factory class. It was the starting point for Flux users. Flux users would first make an instance of Flux's Factory class and then use it to create other objects involved in Flux programming.

Yesterday, I deleted the Factory class from the upcoming Flux 8.0 code base.

Back in 2000, using the factory design pattern was the natural choice for Flux. These days, it's become clear that Flux needs to use simple classes instead of the factory design pattern.

It felt good to simplify.

Recent Flux Customer: Enfusion

brian — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:29:31 GMT

Recent Flux Customer: Enfusion

Lightweight or heavyweight job scheduler?

david — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:30:57 GMT

On a fairly regular basis, we're asked how Flux is different than one of the large, enterprise-class job schedulers like AutoSys and CONTROL-M. The short answer is: apples and oranges.

Is someone on your team doing Java development?

Answer Yes: an embeddable Java job scheduler is the lightweight solution I would use.

Answer No: a stand-alone job scheduler server like AutoSys, CONTROL-M, etc is the heavyweight solution I would use.

I've written a short technical article that addresses this topic. I hope you find it useful if you're sorting out whether you should use an embeddable, lightweight Java job scheduler like Flux or a stand-alone, heavyweight job scheduler server like CONTROL-M or AutoSys.

What's your opinion? Leave a comment or call me on skype at flux.david

REST Action in Flux 8.0

arul — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:02:35 GMT

REST is an architectural style in which software components are modeled as resources accessed over the web which are identified by unique URIs. These resources are traditionally accessed using HTTP. For example, the typical CRUD operations involve read (HTTP GET), create (HTTP POST), update (HTTP PUT), delete (HTTP DELETE). All these operations can be modeled using REST interface. There are some popular web search APIs which are modeled as REST interfaces. One such example is Yahoo Search API (http://developer.yahoo.com/search/rest.html).

Flux 8.0 will ship with a built-in REST Action. The REST Action will allow you to invoke REST services from flow charts and use the result, or response, from the REST service throughout subsequence actions in the flow chart.

The REST service URL is followed by the actual query parameters, which take the form argument=value. Multiple parameters are separated by an ampersand (&). Here is how the REST Action can be used with in a flow chart in Flux 8.0.

Engine engine = new Engine();

FlowChart job = new FlowChart("REST Action Example");

// Create the Rest Action
RestAction restAction = job.makeRestAction("REST GET Action");

// Specify the URL the rest action is to use.
restAction.setUrl("http://search.yahooapis.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch");

// Specify the action type.
restAction.setActionType("get");

// Specify the arguments to pass to the method.
Properties inputParams = new Properties();
inputParams.put("appid", "YahooDemo");
inputParams.put("query", "rest");
inputParams.put("results", "2");

restAction.setInputParams(inputParams);

// Create a Console Action to display the result from the Web service
ConsoleAction consoleAction = job.makeConsoleAction("Display REST Action Result");

// Variable susbtitution is used to access the RESULT flow context variable
consoleAction.setMessage("The result from the REST service is: ${result}\n");

// Make the REST Action flow into the Console Action
restAction.addFlow(consoleAction);

// Schedule the job for immediate execution.
String jobId = engine.put(job);

// Start the engine.
engine.start();

// Give the engine a chance to run the job, up to 5 seconds.
engine.join(jobId, "+5s");

// Clean up the resources.
engine.dispose();

This program invokes the Yahoo Search API and the response is printed to the console.

If you have requirements to integrate a Flux application with a RESTful service, REST Action comes handy in providing this simple integration.

Flux 7.7.5 maintenance version released

nickm — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:43:31 GMT

A maintenance release for Flux 7.7 is now available and includes four improvements and several bug fixes.

Flux 7.7.5 downloads are available here:
my.fluxcorp.com (for Flux customers)

The latest version of Flux is available from:
www.fluxcorp.com/download (for Flux evaluators)

The following maintenance changes were made in this Flux maintenance release, version 7.7.5.

Improvements:

Improved file actions and triggers to allow periods in base directories.
Added support for string-to-string maps in the Web-based Designer.
Added support for Firefox 3 in the Web-based Designer.
Added support for configuring the default project name and copyright string in the Desktop Designer.

Bug Fixes:

A ClassCastException occurred when running a File Delete Action with an FTP host specified. Fixed.
An exception occurred when attempting to search the reporting logs in the Operations Console. Fixed.
An error occurred when attempting to save a flow chart to the local drive from the repository in the Operations Console. Fixed.
Using the guided flow chart rescheduled in the Operations Console could cause an error. Fixed.
A SQLException occurred when calling Engine.getLongestRuntime(). Fixed.
The File Rename Action was not working properly when using a remote host with a file path specified for the file criteria target. Fixed.
Flow charts containing string maps could not be saved from the desktop or Web-based Designer. Fixed.
If a File Action used an FTP, SFTP, or FTPS host and the target file was already present, the source file would be copied to the base directory of the target host. Fixed.

Forced Inspiration: On time and On budget

brian — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:58:11 GMT

Summertime is here! Unless, of course, you are one of our south of the equator customers or if you happen to be here in Billings, MT where the sun seems to have forgotten us. Now that winter is behind us, the creative juices can start to flow. Of course, we all have jobs so you need to get inspired, work out the details, and submit a plan by the time your Thursday planning meeting is scheduled. And remember, budget doesn't grow on trees, so keep your Inspiration cheap.

Where in the world are you going to find a new idea? You know, the one that doesn't cost too much? Why don't you try looking at some of the Flux features you aren't using.

Wow, even better, Inspiration that doesn't require a purchase order! With over 40 triggers and actions, Flux just might be able to solve a problem that has been lying there for a while now. If you are like most customers, you are only scratching the surface of what Flux could be doing for you.

If you are under the gun to come of with a flash of brilliance without spending any money. You can also take a quick peek at our Features Chart to see if there is something that you can use.

Recent Flux Customer: The Clearing House

brian — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:32:35 GMT

Recent Flux Customer: The Clearing House

Tech Tip: Contextual Job Properties

eric — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:58:39 GMT

Flux jobs are executed in a job tree. The job tree is similar to the concept of a file system where jobs (like files) are stored in namespaces (or folders). Each job has a namespace where it executes. All jobs execute underneath the root namespace and can execute in sub-namespaces.

For example, a Flux job that runs a monthly payroll report for a client may execute under the following namespace:

/client1/reports/payroll/monthly/Report1000

With many clients, you could easily have hundreds of reports to process. Using one job template, or flow chart, for all of the monthly payroll reports would be ideal. There will be some issues that we will need to address in the design of the job template to ensure we have a proper design to serve all of the clients.

Each client will have a different server (FTP, SFTP, etc.) where the report files are to be uploaded. We will need to support this somehow. There may be other variables between the monthly payroll reports for each client as well.

Flux has a built-in mechanism that can really assist us in satisfying the requirement of variable data between our jobs. This feature is called the "runtime configuration". You can store any Java object in the runtime configuration. String properties can be loaded from a standard Java properties or any property can be created using the Flux Java API.

Here's an example of a runtime configuration file:

/payrollReportDir=reports/payroll

/username=reports

/client1/reportServer=reports.client1.com

/client2/reportServer=reports.client2.com

/client3/reportServer=reports.client3.com

/client4/reportServer=reports.client4.com

There are five runtime configuration properties defined in this file. There is one defined at the root level and one property defined for each client (client1-4).

We can easily access these properties from our job using the Flux runtime variable substitution mechanism. For example, we can using ${runtime reportServer} as the server name in any File action or trigger. We can also use ${runtime payrollReportDir}. The runtime configuration tree will be searched for a matching property starting in the namespace where the job is executing. All jobs will upload reports to the “reports/payroll” directory as the reports user on the file server and any job running under /client1 will use the reports.client1.com server.

Runtime configuration properties allow you to have properties whose value changes based on where the job is executed. This feature allows you to build dynamic job templates that can simplify your enterprise jobs.

Flux 7.5.3 maintenance version released

nickm — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:17:55 GMT

A maintenance release for Flux 7.5 is now available and includes one improvement and several bug fixes.

Flux 7.5.3 downloads are available here:
my.fluxcorp.com (for Flux customers)

The latest version of Flux is available from:
www.fluxcorp.com/download (for Flux evaluators)

The following maintenance changes were made in this Flux maintenance release, version 7.5.3.

Improvements:

Flow charts names are now case-sensitive in order to reduce database deadlocks. WARNING: This could have a negative impact on your application. Please test and make appropriate changes.

Bug Fixes:

The Flux engine could become blocked and cease processing jobs under a heavy load. Fixed.
Confirming a Business Process Trigger on a stopped engine would result in a NullPointerException. Fixed.
All engines running in the same JVM logged to the same log file. Fixed.
Using an unsupported XML parser would display XML errors to the engine console. Fixed.
Icons indicating the state of engines in the engines page of the Operations Console were sometimes incorrect. Fixed.
Clicking a flow chart in the flow charts page of the Operations Console
could cause a JavaScript error when using a secure engine. Fixed.
A File Move Action using multiple Simple File Target Criteria would only move files to the first target criteria. Fixed.
Running a flow chart with a checkpoint (a flow that publishes messages)
could cause a message iterator to close prematurely. Fixed.
JavaScript exceptions occurred when embedding the Web-based Designer as a JavaScript widget. Fixed.
A NullPointerException could occur when removing a running sub flow chart. Fixed.
A ClassCastException occurred when editing action variables in the Web-based Designer. Fixed.
An EngineException occurred when running the software developer's security example. Fixed.
Regular expression special characters were not allowed inside variable values when using substitution. Fixed.
A NullPointerException occurred when attempting to access the
Web-based Workflow Designer of the Operations Console on an engine
configured to use external security. Fixed.
A NullPointerException occurred when accessing the security page of the
Operations Console on an engine configured to use external security.
Fixed.
When using a UNC file host, regular expression excludes were not working properly. Fixed.
An exception occurred when using a Process Action in a sub flow chart with an agent pool defined. Fixed.

Flux 7.7.4 maintenance version released

nickm — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:46:19 GMT

A maintenance release for Flux 7.7 is now available and includes several bug fixes.

Flux 7.7.4 downloads are available here:
my.fluxcorp.com (for Flux customers)

The latest version of Flux is available from:
www.fluxcorp.com/download (for Flux evaluators)

The following maintenance changes were made in this Flux maintenance release, version 7.7.4.

Bug Fixes:

In the Operations Console, applying a filter to the Flow Charts page did not work properly. Fixed.
Running a flow chart with a checkpoint (a flow that publishes messages) could cause a message iterator to close prematurely. Fixed.
Agents and Engines with cluster networking enabled would not dispose correctly. Fixed.
Regular expression special characters were not allowed inside variable values when using substitution. Fixed.
A Class Cast Exception would occur if a flow chart containing a runtime data map was exported to the engine. Fixed.