In addition to powerful mathematics and modern computer power, excellence in optimization requires efficient models and easy to use applications. IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition provides the fastest way to build efficient optimization models and state-of-the-art applications for the full range of planning and scheduling problems.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition provides Optimization Programming Language (OPL) for specifying models in a natural mathematical form and an integrated development environment for building and testing applications.

The Optimization Programming Language (OPL) provides a natural representation of optimization models, requiring far less effort than general-purpose programming languages. OPL has advanced data types designed for the special needs of optimization problems, and it fully supports linear and quadratic objectives and constraints, as well as real and integer decision variables. It also supports both mathematical and constraint programming techniques.

The IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition integrated development environment (IDE) makes it easy to evaluate different modeling approaches to a problem and to integrate external data. Debugging and tuning tools support the development process, and once ready, the model can be deployed into an external application. OPL models can be easily integrated into any application written in Java, .NET or C++. Alternatively, the IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition can add on IBM ILOG ODM Desktop Edition to generate a state-of-the-art decision support application based on the OPL model.

The following diagram shows the complete model and application development process supported by IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition. Each box corresponds to detailed descriptions of the supported capabilities below.

IBM ILOG OPL Development Studio, consisting of the OPL language and the IDE, is at the core of two development packages. Each has been designed to meet the needs of various organizations wishing to either deliver optimization-based services or prototype and build optimization-based decision support applications:

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Analyst Studio
This is the recommended package for Operations Research (OR) analysts who occasionally run optimization models and present their results as part of special projects, but don't need to create optimization applications for continuous use. The OPL modeling language can be used from the IDE.

The IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition
This is the recommended package for those who want to develop an application with the help of an IT team. The OPL modeling language can be used either from the IDE or through the application programming interface (API); and it provides full access to APIs and tools specific to IBM ILOG CPLEX and IBM ILOG CP Optimizer. It also can add on IBM ILOG ODM Desktop Edition, to automatically generate optimization-based decision support applications with what-if scenario comparison capabilities and tabular and graphic data views.

With most optimization projects, it is crucial to identify the relevant demand data, resources, constraints, costs, customer preferences, goals and solution metrics early in the process. IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition helps make this process easier.

A model library provides quick starting points for consideration and the integrated development environment (IDE) facilitates project development over time. More importantly, IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition's ability to integrate with IBM ILOG ODM provides a way to generate an application prototype in minutes, allowing business users without formal training in Operations Research (OR) to participate in the model refinement process.

With an application prototype, business users can review the entire model in a context that makes sense to them. Not only can users verify that all model inputs and outputs are correct, but they can help determine how the model should behave—how constraints should be relaxed, what explanations should be given and which model inputs should be exposed for modification in the scenario creation process.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition can import data and export optimized solutions to databases and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Excel spreadsheets are accessed through specified cell references or named ranges. For larger data sources, IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition can access major relational databases through SQL commands in an OPL data source. A clean separation of the model and the data values makes it easy to switch between data sources and migrate from test data to a production database.

Data preparation and manipulation with the OPL modeling language is powerful and efficient. The modeling language supports both arrays and sets of data, and external database tables are naturally mapped to Tuple sets. Tuples, like databases, support primary and foreign keys, allowing for efficient model execution. Writing constraints and goals by referencing fine-grained sets of valid possibilities supports precision slicing, allowing models to solve problems more quickly, and eliminating the need to write unnecessary code.

OPL makes it easy to quickly access data from Microsoft Excel as well as enterprise databases, or a combination of both.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition is a full featured integrated development environment (IDE) with extensive support for project management and model review. The OPL modeling language represents mathematical problems descriptively, producing substantially simpler and shorter code than general-purpose programming languages. Its powerful syntax supports all expressions needed to model and solve problems using mathematical programming- and constraint programming-based approaches.

The modeling language allows compact formulation, and the IDE provides easy navigation and execution of models.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition is the most efficient way to take advantage of the full power of IBM ILOG CPLEX. It provides full support for logical constraints that allow writing higher level, more powerful constraints—constraints that use operators such as AND, OR, NOT, IF...THEN, MIN, MAX and Absolute Value. Logical constraints also provide support for piecewise linear constraints where a cost or constraint is declared as a set of ranges. Similarly, IBM ILOG CPLEX's indicator constraints eliminate the need for inefficient and artificial "Big-M" upper bound formulations.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX features logical constraints, allowing easier model formulations.

Real-world applications often require algorithmic approaches beyond the single-model view of most operations research (OR) textbooks. OPL Script, built on top of the OPL modeling language, provides a full-featured, JavaScript-compatible language for data pre-processing, solution post-processing and model flow control. OPL Script can be used to solve complex problems by combining or chaining models, where recommendations from initial optimization models act as input data for subsequent models. Scripting can take advantage of IBM ILOG CPLEX warm starts and efficiently modify coefficients in the IBM ILOG CPLEX matrix when iteratively solving a model.

It is common for the introduction of new business requirements to lead to unexpected results during the model refinement process. For example, a new constraint might make a model infeasible or a solution might no longer make sense after an additional objective has been enabled.

IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition has several features to help model developers find and address the problems that arise in the real world:

A warning is presented when constraints are not expanded.

Achieving reasonable solving performance with a model can sometimes be a challenging task, even with help from the world's fastest optimization engine. IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition makes model performance tuning easier.

Managing data sets, parameter settings and models

The first step in performance tuning is to create a set of scenarios, combining particular alternate model formulations, data instances and engine parameters. IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition's Run Configurations feature is specifically designed to support the systematic isolation of performance problems.

Run Configuration allows you to organize models and data sets into executable scenarios.

When an IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition project contains multiple models with multiple engine settings and multiple data files, a Run Configuration references the specific combinations to be executed. Easily configurable through drag-and-drop, a benchmark suite is easy to manage, right from within the IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition integrated development environment (IDE).

The Profiler in IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition helps you identify the precise bottlenecks in your models, including showing how memory and time is spent, both during model generation and model execution.

Example from the Profiler, detailing time and memory consumption for a MILP model.

At the heart of an integrated system
IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition is at the core of applications developed with IBM ILOG CPLEX and IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise, supporting all aspects of optimization model-based application development. IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise enables rapid development of flexible decision support applications. Applications based on IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise allow users to adjust assumptions, operating constraints and goals, and to see the engine's recommendations in familiar business terminology, providing extensive support for what-if analysis, scenario comparison, solution explanations, and the controlled relaxation of binding constraints. IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition can add in IBM ILOG ODM Desktop Edition for single-user applications.

Automatic application generation
IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition and IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise have made it possible to automatically generate an optimization application from the structure of an OPL model. A simple wizard-guided step provides the initial application. OPL data structures are automatically mapped to data tables in IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise, decision variables and solution metrics are mapped to solution views, and objective functions are mapped to IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise's interactive business goals. Constraints marked as relaxable in the OPL model are exposed to the end user by name and priority, allowing relaxations and trade-offs based on business importance.

Configuring data and solution visualization
Charts based on IBM ILOG JViews are pre-packaged for visualization of input data and solutions, allowing developers to easily produce informative displays for solution analysis and scenario comparison. To further configure and tailor the generated application, the IBM ILOG OPL-CPLEX Developer Edition contains editors for customizing the appearance and behavior of all data display tables and charts, business goals, business costs and business constraints. In addition, any type of custom Java-based graphical can be created and embedded into the GUI, allowing final applications to include completely custom views.

Editors for configuring data tables, charts (shown), business goals and business rules for scenario editing.

Business analyst and management participation
IBM ILOG ODM Enterprise is focused on producing deployable, state-of-the-art decision support applications, but it offers one additional advantage: at any point in the model development process, a draft model can be turned into a working application. Business analysts and managers can easily understand inputs and outputs, and can ask questions and make suggestions. This makes it easier for them to participate in the process of refining models, model behavior, displays and scenario creation parameters.

On these platforms, full functionality is provided, including OPL’s integrated development environment (IDE), the command line tool (oplrun) and OPL Interfaces (APIs). You can develop and debug models in the IDE, run and analyze them through the command line, and embed them in applications.

On these platforms, only the command line tool (oplrun) and OPL Interfaces (APIs) are available. You can run and analyze models through the command line and embed them in applications using the IBM ILOG OPL Development Studio's APIs.

Two work modes are possible with the desktop version of IBM ILOG ODM: development mode and deployment mode.

In this mode, IBM ILOG ODM editors are used from within the IBM ILOG OPL integrated development environment (IDE), and IBM ILOG ODM Studio is launched on this machine from the IBM ILOG OPL IDE or through IBM ILOG ODM Player.

In this mode, ODM is deployed on a desktop machine and all data is stored in a scenario database. Processing (solving) occurs on this machine.

Note: Many vendors have operating system and compiler versions that are different from those listed above. In some cases they are compatible with the compilers listed here. See the vendor's technical support for compatibility details.