Published Release Notes

Update Existing Applications wizard will run for every upgrade

The upgrade process from a PRPC 5.x or 6.x system to Pega 7.1.7 now automatically runs the Update Existing Applications wizard. This may extend the time that the upgrade process takes to complete, depending on the version you are upgrading from and the number of rules in your application.

Upgrading to Pega 7.1.7 with an Oracle database requires new role permissions

When upgrading or updating from a prior version to Pega 7.1.7, if your system uses an Oracle database, an additional role is required to support the Reversability functionality. In addition to the Oracle privileges specified in the Install Guides, the role SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE is required. Verify that this role is present before beginning the upgrade or update.

IBM WebSphere Application Server V8: Edit the URL for Enabling System Management Application

WebSphere 8 does not correctly resolve the URL to enable System Management Application. As a workaround, when you configure the application server, you can do either of these actions:

• Enter the full URL in the format:
  ​http://hostname:port/prsysmgmt/getnodes.action

• Set the com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.redirectcontextroot property to true.

Add additional columns to customized work history tables

The standard work history table, pc_history_work, contains two new columns that return the latitude and longitude coordinate location of the action that prompted the history. Mobile devices can display this location as a street address. If you have a customized work history table, add these two columns to it:

• <decimal name="pxLatitude" size="19" scale="9"/>
• <decimal name="pxLongitude" size="19" scale="9"/>

Action required by admins for improved search

Starting November 13, 2014, after updating to or upgrading from a prior version to Pega 7.1.7, your system administrator must manually build all indexes for Elasticsearch before the system can automatically switch from Lucene to Elasticsearch.

It is recommended that you begin this manual re-indexing process for all enabled index types as soon as your update or upgrade is complete. The search landing page refers to Elasticsearch settings; during re-indexing, however, Lucene search continues to function to ensure that there is no interruption in search functions. When planning the re-indexing, be aware that the initial re-indexing requires significant resources on the host node and can be a lengthy process, depending on the number of rules and work objects in your system.

See the Pega 7.1.7 Upgrade Guide for information about manually indexing Elasticsearch.

Open ports required for cluster communication

In a Pega 7 system, there can be multiple servers, or nodes, and each node can contain multiple JVMs.  In Pega 7.1.7, the port range 5701-5800 needs to be left open for cluster communication.   The number of available ports in this range needs to be greater than or equal to the greatest number of JVMs on any one node in the cluster.  So for example, if there are 3 JVMs on one node, and 7 JVMs on another node, there need to be at least 7 ports available.  By default, the system will begin with port 5701, and then look for the next port in the sequence (5702, followed by 5703).

If these ports are not available, you will see the following error:

ERROR   - PegaRULES initialization failed. Server: ABCDEF123

com.pega.pegarules.pub.context.InitializationFailedError: PRNodeImpl init failed

< . . . Java dump here . . . >

Caused by: com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastException: ServerSocket bind has failed. Hazelcast cannot start! config-port: <port>, latest-port: <port>

Using Kerberos authentication with your database

Pega 7 supports Kerberos functionality. Kerberos is a computer network authentication protocol which allows nodes communicating over a non-secure network to prove their identity to one another in a secure manner. 

To use Kerberos for authentication, you must use the command line to install or upgrade Pega 7.

To use Kerberos authentication:

1.  Change the setupDatabase.properties file.

a.  In the “Uncomment this property section” of the file, uncomment the jdbc.custom.connection.properties property.  Based on your security infrastructure, different properties may be required as parameters to this property; provide the needed properties as semicolon-delimited name/value pairs:
 

jdbc.custom.connection.properties=prop1=val1;prop2=val2;prop3=val3;
 

Example:  For an installation on a MSSQL database server from a Windows client machine (where both machines belong to the same Windows domain), using the Microsoft JDBC driver, the property may be set as follows:
 

jdbc.custom.connection.properties=integratedSecurity=true;

b.  Comment out all the username and password properties where they occur in the jdbc.custom.connection.properties file, so that they appear as follows:

# pega.jdbc.username db username
# pega.jdbc.password db password

[lines removed here]

# pega.jdbc.username=ADMIN
# pega.jdbc.password=ADMIN

2.  Set up your database to enable Kerberos functionality.  This may include additional vendor-specific JDBC driver configuration, or other setup procedures.  Check the documentation from your database vendor to determine what Kerberos setup is needed for your database.

3.  Run the command line installation or upgrade by following the instructions found in the Pega 7 Deployment guides.

Run cleanup.bat/sh script only before upgrading

Prior to upgrading the rulebase, you can optionally run the cleanup.bat/sh script to remove older rules from the database.

Run this script before you upgrade your rulebase, or the script may delete needed rulesets. For more information about running the cleanup.bat/sh script, refer to the Upgrade Guide specific to your release version.

Password hashing using SHA-256/SHA-512

Password hashing using the SHA-256 and SHA-512 hash functions is available for use during the the Pega 7 authentication process with operator, ruleset, and update lock passwords. The SHA-256/SHA-512 hash functions join the previously available MD5 and SHA-1 hash functions.

Using SHA-256/SHA-512 hashing when creating or upgrading a password hash results in increased complexity of the hash, making it extremely difficult and time-consuming to determine hashed password values stored in a database.

Note that once you have updated your system to Pega 7.1.7 and have applied password hashing using the SHA-256/SHA-512 hash functions, reverting back to a previous version of Pega 7 is not advised as this causes hashed passwords using SHA-256/SHA-512 to fail.

See About password hashing for more information.

Recommended heap sizes

The heap is a storage area in the Java virtual machine (JVM) allocated for both short-term and long-term (shared) object storage. If the server does not have enough memory allocated to run Pega 7, the system can hang without an error message. If this occurs, your values need to be higher than the recommendations based on your server hardware and the number of other applications on the server.

Pegasystems recommends using these settings:

• Initial Heap Size (Xms): 1 GB
• Maximum Heap Size (Xmx): 12 GB (8 GB minimum)

If your application server is using the Oracle JVM, also add the PermSize and MaxPermSize settings:

• PermSize (-XX:PermSize): at least 256MB
• MaxPermSize (-XX:MaxPermSize): at least 512MB

Set the JVM memory options to increase the amount of system memory allocated to the application server running Pega 7 by selecting Designer Studio > System > Operations > System Management Application and then selecting a listed node.

See the Pega 7.1.7 Installation Guides for more information about how to make these setting changes.