Published Release Notes

Experimental high-speed data page support

An experimental implementation of high-speed, read-only data pages is available. This implementation is useful when data pages are used to hold static data that is used repeatedly. You can enable this feature for a specific read-only data page from the Load Management tab of the data page rule form by clicking Enable high-performance read-only data page. This feature does not support full clipboard page functionality; use with caution.

The following functionality is supported:

• Basic page and property access (read and write properties) for all normal data types
• Hierarchical data page structure (pages within pages)
• Dictionary validation mode
• Read-only data pages

The following functionality is not supported:

• Declarative rules
• Page messages
• Complex property references
• Saving pages to a database
• API access to the data page

Protect against insecure deserialization

Deserialization is the process of rebuilding a data stream into a Java object. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) has identified insecure deserialization as one of the top 10 security vulnerabilities for web applications. Pega Platform™ protects against this vulnerability by using filters that prevent deserialization of suspect data streams. You can configure these filters from the Deserialization Blacklist landing page.

For more information, see Configuring the deserialization filter.

Improved clipboard performance for editable data pages

Improve clipboard performance for editable data page processing by using the new high-throughput mode option. This mode does not support all clipboard features.

For a list of supported and unsupported features, see Data page rules - Using the Definition tab.

Service Portlet rules are deprecated

Service Portlet rules are deprecated. Existing rules will continue to work, but you cannot create new ones. Use Pega Web Mashup instead. In addition, some changes might impact functionality. If you are using Portlet rules and plan to upgrade, contact your customer service representative.

For more information about Pega Web Mashup, see About Pega Web Mashup.

Deprecated metadata types in the Connector and Metadata wizard

The WSDL, SAP WSDL, and DTD metadata types have been deprecated in the Connector and Metadata wizard. For WSDL, use SOAP integration, and for DTD, use XSD.

For more information about SOAP connectors, see About Connect SOAP rules. For more information about XSD, see About the Connector and Metadata wizard.

Support for the POST method in Integration Designer

From Integration Designer, you can now source data from any REST endpoint that requires a POST method to retrieve information. With the POST method, you can encrypt sensitive information in the body of the request.

For more information about using the POST method, see the POST method section on Service REST form - Completing the Methods tab.

Deprecated support for passing symbolic index as strings to value lists and page lists

Starting with the next release after Pega Platform™ 8.2, passing symbolic indexes as strings in parameters, properties, and string literals to both value lists and page lists will no longer be supported. The following examples show the syntax that still works in Pega 8.2, that will not work in the next release:

myPageList("<LAST>")

and

param.str = "<LAST>"
myPageList(param.str)

The following example shows syntax that currently is not supported and gives a validation error. This syntax will also not work in future releases.

param.str = <LAST>
myPageList(param.str)

To avoid issues after upgrading to Pega 8.3, refactor all occurrences of this syntax in your code. For instructions on how to find occurrences of this syntax in your code, see Refactoring unsupported symbolic index syntax for value lists and page lists.

For more information about the correct use of symbolic indexes, see Symbolic indexes – APPEND, CURRENT, INSERT, LAST, and PREPEND.

Token credentials authentication service

You can create a new type of authentication service for token credentials authentication, which is useful for offline mobile applications. With token credentials authentication, users need to enter their credentials only once in a session. Subsequent access to the server is authenticated with a token. The token can be generated by the Pega Platform™ authorization layer (OAuth 2.0) or issued by an external identity provider.

For more information, see Configuring a token credentials authentication service.

Platform truststore for validating certificates

Pega Platform™ now includes a platform truststore, to which you can import X.509 certificates that are common across platform applications. When a certificate needs to be validated, Pega Platform looks for the certificate at the connector level, then in the platform truststore, and finally in the application server (JVM) truststore. You can add, update, and delete certificates in the platform truststore without having to restart the server, which is useful when TLS certificates are changed for reasons such as key rotation.

For more information, see Importing an X.509 certificate.

Support for additional key management services

By supporting additional key management services, Pega Platform™ offers you increased flexibility when defining keys that are used for encryption of application and internal system data. You can now create keystores that reference keys from key management services such as Microsoft Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault, and Google Cloud KMS, in addition to Amazon KMS. You can also create a keystore that references other key management services through the use of a data page.

For more information, see Configuring a Microsoft Azure Key Vault keystore, Configuring a HashiCorp Vault keystore, and Configuring a Google Cloud KMS keystore.