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Application-Based Assembly (ABA) mode

The Application-Based Assembly (ABA) mode of operation provides significant runtime performance advantages over the alternative Rules Assembly (RA) cache approach.

Applications can operate using:

Note: Applications should use virtual rules table (VTable) mode, because the assembly cache engine blends the benefits of VTable with ABA:

Prconfig settings

Like other prconfig settings, the set prconfig value can be saved in the prconfig.xml file or as a specially-formatted Dynamic System Setting data instance. See How to create or update a prconfig setting.

Caution: This setting must have the same value for all nodes in a cluster.

Fully Application-Based Assembly cache mode

Fully ABA cache mode is sometimes referred to as AppCentric mode.

An application operates in Fully ABA cache mode if:

Note: The default setting of fua/assemblyCacheMode is AC. When using this default setting, you cannot revert back to any previous generation caching mode, such as Rules Assembly mode.

When operating in this mode, the ruleset list is ordered using the ABA model for all requestors and all other operations that use a ruleset list. The ABA cache is used to retrieve assembled rules.

ABA operation provides a marked performance improvement over Rules Assembly mode.

Fully Rules Assembly cache mode

An application operates in Fully Rules Assembly cache mode if:

This mode matches ruleset list ordering and caching. Run-time execution is normally slower than ABA mode. The Rules Assembly cache is used, and the ABA cache is not used.

This mode is suitable for applications that do not meet the restrictions of ABA mode.

Mixed mode

An application operates in Mixed mode if:

Mixed mode is suitable for applications that meet the requirements of ABA mode, but are in transition towards fully ABA operation. Users in either mode will experience identical functional results, but those accessing the application in Rules Assembly mode may experience poorer performance.

Restrictions

All new applications are structured to work with both ABA mode and VTable. Additionally, any existing applications are also qualified to use full ABA mode and VTable.

Note: Override rulesets are not supported in ABA. For any access group that refers to an application with override rulesets:

  1. Run Mixed mode.
  2. Set Previous generation caching mode.

For localized and branch rulesets, the order of the ruleset list differs slightly when in ABA mode and when in Rules Assembly mode. This means that although it is highly unlikely when following localization best practices, it is still possible that rule resolution can pick a different rule when in ABA mode compared to Rules Assembly mode, leading to unexpected and incorrect results.

For details on how the ruleset lists differ, see How the system assembles and uses your RuleSet list.

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