0 Replies Latest reply on Sep 26, 2012 8:12 AM by gerasalus

    Using drools in a web app is my approach correct

    gerasalus

      Hi all,

       

      some newbie questions. I'm wondering is my thinking and my architecture correct?

       

      Preconditions:

       

      1. We have a set of rules stored in DB.Rules will be reloaded from DB only once a day
      2. We have a set of meta-facts. Retrieval of those facts is expensive, and they only get updated once a day, after midnight - current meta-facts are immutable for a day.
      3. We have user facts - some user specific data which we should be using together with meta-facts and producing output for specific user.
      4. Our SLA is 150 req/s.

       

      Typical flow would be something like: we have rules together with meta facts. Along comes user with his general facts and request specific facts. For this input we run rules and produce results - calculate some data.

      Basically a typical quote calculation, just we are not calculating quotes

       

      Rules may change working memory  (cart explosion pattern)

       

      So how would i make this work for multi user environment in a spring web apps? My ideas:

       

      1. Create a custom Spring scope that will cache KnowledgeBase and invalidate it once it expires (at the beginning of new day)
      2. Cache meta-facts (they are expensive to retrieve) for given time
      3. For each user request (user comes in with its own facts) - create a new StatefulKnowledgeSession from existing KnowledgeBase byt inserting meta-facts and user specific facts and execute fireAllRules
      4. Retrieve the result and dispose the StatefulKnowledgeSession()

       

      As i unserstand, if my rules are modifying working memory, i cannot reuse StatefulKnowledgeSession for different users (as they bring their own facts).  Is there a better approach ? By reading forums and mailing lists i have mixed data about StatefulKnowledgeSession creation. There are threads that state cpu spikes while creating sessions.

       

      Maybe i should be considering pool of StatefulKnowledgeSession and inserting/retracing user facts while keeping meta-facts?

       

      Thanks!