Event Log

Windows Events and File Logging

During rule execution, InRule will attempt to log events to either the Windows Event Log or a file-based logger. The amount and granularity of the event logging is controlled by settings exposed in the .NET configuration file for the process that is hosting InRule.

The InRule Configuration Wizard or the xcopy License Activation Tool can be used to register a Windows Event Log category on a given machine. If this category is available, then InRule events will be logged there. If the InRule event log category is not available, then events will be logged to the Windows Application log.

The InRule Category in the Windows Event Log

As a best practice, the InRule.Logging section should be included in the *.config file of any process that is consuming InRule. If this section is defined, then logging levels can be toggled quickly by adjusting the value of the "level" attribute in the config file. For more information regarding configuration of InRule event logging, please see the SDK help file page InRule Logging Config File Settings. Note that if the log level is set to "Info", then the rule engine will log a light-weight summary event each time the rule engine is invoked. These summary events contain information about threading, execution times, and memory use. Some InRule implementations benefit from "info" level logging even in production, as these summary events can be reviewed to detect trends in performance and usage.

The InRule ROAD Services team has in-house tools available that can parse "info"-level log events. Below is a sample graph depicting execution times for concurrent request execution across many threads. The info level log approach can help identify and diagnose anomalies such as the unexpected spike shown in the sample.

A Sample Graph of "info"-Level Log Data-- Helping to Identify an Anomaly