Published Release Notes

EAR support for JBoss EAP 6

PRPC deployment in JBoss EAP 6 as an EAR archive is now supported. 

If you need to deploy the JBoss EAR file, go to My Support Portal and submit a Support Request. GCS can assist you with the procedure.

Small distribution kit

A new “small” release distribution format for Maintenance Levels (ML) is now available, designed to significantly increase adoption via: 

• Minimal package size and faster download time
• Minimal install time via tactical changes to the upgrade implementation and process

This kit contains streamlined installers (both UI and command-line installers) and specialized error handling for ML updates (for example, a “small” kit will only work if an existing version of the same release is already installed). 

The kit assembly has also been automated, which includes the construction of a PRPC_Rules.jar archive containing cumulative rules since the GA release. 

A “small” kit will work for any prior ML release within a major release (for example, the “small” ML5 distribution kit will update any customer on 7.1 ML1 through 7.1 ML4).

Improved data page performance

Improvements have been made with queueing and processing of asynchronously-loaded data pages to reduce the number of calls to the database and avoid generating performance problems because of unneeded asynchronous requests.

Restricted SMA access

System Management Application (SMA) remote connections are not supported on JBoss EAP 6.x. This means SMA users may only monitor locally connected systems. Ensure that the "Local JVM Connection..." option is selected when configuring PRPC nodes:

DB2-LUW database logfile size increase

To avoid running out of logfile space due to large transaction sets during the rule base load of a Pega 7.1.x install, upgrade, or maintenance level update, systems supported by a DB2-LUW database platform should increase the LOGFILSIZ parameter to at least 4096 pages from the default size of 1000 pages.

After the size has been increased, restart the database to ensure that the new setting is loaded into the database correctly.

Need to run script before updating Multitenant systems

When updating or upgrading a Multitenant system from Pega 7.1.5 or 7.1.6 to Pega 7.1.7, if that system uses either an Oracle or a PostgreSQL database, you may encounter the error:

“Table must be empty to add column.”

The Multitenant architecture requires an additional column on a number of the PRPC database tables (“pzTenantID”). In Pega 7.1.7, two additional PRPC tables were tenant-qualified: pc_schedule_task and pr_index_schedule_task. The Multitenant column is added to these tables by the update/upgrade process. However, Oracle and PostgreSQL do not allow the addition of a non-null column to an existing table unless the table is empty, so updating or upgrading systems on those databases displays the error detailed above.

To avoid this error, before beginning the update or upgrade, it is necessary to run a script:

• Oracle — OracleMTupgrade.sql
• PostgreSQL — PostgresMTupgrade.sql

For updates, these scripts are located in the /scripts/ddl directory.

For upgrades, these scripts are located in the /Resourcekit/AdditionalUpgradeScripts directory.

Extract data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises database

You can now use Pega^® Business Intelligence Exchange (BIX) to extract data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises relational database management system. Extracting data from Pega Cloud directly to an on-premises database improves efficiency by eliminating the need for file extraction and the development of a file extraction infrastructure.

For more information, see Extracting data from Pega Cloud to an on-premises database.

Improved connection pooling performance

HikariCP is now used for connection pooling for databases that are configured by using a URL. HikariCP improves connection pooling performance; however, more database connections might be used than in previous versions of Pega^® Platform.

As a result of the switch to HikariCP, you cannot use the System Management Application (SMA) to get diagnostic data from your application. For instructions about how to get diagnostic data by using REST services, see Obtaining connection pool diagnostic data by using REST services.

No longer supported translator configuration options

The following translator configuration options are not needed and are no longer supported. If you previously configured any of these system settings, remove them from the system settings to avoid a warning message. For example, if you set translator/useparserfamily, the following message is displayed at startup: "Translator option, 'translator/useparserfamily' is not needed and no longer supported. Remove this from the system settings."

• translator/useparserfamily
• translator/usecodegenerator
• translator/usenativedouble
• translator/optimization/use71BlockAnalysis
• translator/optimization/use71ConstantFolding
• translator/optimization/use71AssignmentTypeSimplification
• translator/optimization/use71IntrinsicFunctions
• translator/use71PropSetGeneration
• translator/use71ParserAssignment
• assembly/model/useBlock4ContiguousSets
• /translator/pandc/comparepandcalgorithms
• /translator/pandc/use6xalgorithms
• /Compatibility/CheckForTopLevelClassMismatch

In addition, the com.pega.pegarules.generation.parseoverride bootstrap option is no longer supported. Remove this option from the system settings.

System state data is saved for 90 days

System state data is now saved to the database for 90 days and can be downloaded as a JSON file. Having previous system state data available is useful for debugging system problems. Operators with the pzSystemOperationsObserver privilege can download system state data from the Cluster Management landing page for either the entire cluster or a single node. In addition, the PersistClusterState and PersistNodeState agents have been added to the Pega-RulesEngine ruleset for persisting system state data to the database.

For more information, see Downloading the system state.