Published Release Notes

Data schema error on z/OS split schema upgrades from versions before Pega 7.1.8

When upgrading to a split schema on Pega 7.x with IBM DB2 for z/OS, you see an error during the data schema upgrade when the system tries to drop the PRPC_Updatescache procedure. Because triggers on rules tables use PRPC_Updatescache, you must use the ZOSDisableTriggerScripts to disable these triggers before you update the data schema.

1. Follow the instructions in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide to upgrade the rules schema, but stop immediately before you upgrade the data schema with the upgrade.bat or upgrade.sh script. The Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide is on the Support > Deployment Guides page.
2. Copy the contents of the <distribution>\ResourceKit\ZOSDisableTriggerScripts directory into the <distribution>\scripts\ directory.
3. Run fixZosTriggers.bat or fixZosTriggers.sh with the following arguments:
   --action preupgrade
--dataschema <data schema name>
   --oldrulesschema <old rules schema name. If you are upgrading from a single-schema system, this is the data schema name.>
   --newrulesschema <new rules schema name>
   --automaticddl <Optional. Set to true to automatically apply the disable trigger SQL scripts.>

   For example:
   fixZosTriggers --action preupgrade --dataschema pegadata --oldrulesschema pegarules --newrulesschema newrules --automaticddl false

4. If you did not set --automaticddl to true in the previous step, run the <distribution>\schema/disable.sql script to manually disable the trigger SQL scripts.
5. Run the data schema upgrade as described in the Pega 7 Platform Upgrade Guide.

Support for Apache Cassandra

The Pega^® Platform can now read data from and write data to an Apache Cassandra database. Apache Cassandra is a NoSQL database that you can use when a NoSQL database better meets your scalability and processing requirements.

For a list of supported and unsupported features, see Apache Cassandra support.

Requestor pools management in Designer Studio

On the new Requestor Pools landing page, you can view and manage requestor pools across the cluster, including on the current node and remote nodes. By using this landing page, you can tune the requestor pools to improve the performance of services. You can clear the requestor pool for a service package and view the requestor pool basic metrics and configured thresholds.

For more information, see Requestor pools management, Clearing a requestor pool, Viewing details for a requestor pool, Tuning a requestor pool configuration.

Module version report generated from Designer Studio

From the new Class Management landing page, you can generate the module version report that provides information about classes in your system, module versions, and version creation dates. You can generate the report for all the nodes in the cluster or for a selected node that is either current or remote. The report is useful for debugging system problems because it helps identify the module version that is causing problems on a specific node.

For more information, see Module version report.

Rules Assembly cache is deprecated

Rules Assembly (RA) cache and custom settings for its corresponding fua/assemblyCacheModeprconfig.xml file setting are deprecated because they are obsolete. A warning is logged at startup if a custom (non-default) value is specified for fua/assemblyCacheMode in the prconfig.xml file. The functional behavior of the system is not affected.

Improved Clipboard performance

Clipboard performance has been enhanced to use high-speed, read-only data pages, making processing faster. For some high throughput use cases, performance might be degraded. If performance is degraded, you can use a restricted feature set for a specific read-only data page by selecting Restricted feature set for high throughput on the Load management tab of the data page rule.

For information about unsupported features when using a restricted feature set, see High-speed data page support.

Simplified deployment of stand-alone Apache Ignite servers

You can now install or upgrade Pega^® Platform in client-server mode, which uses Apache Ignite in a simplified way. The new installation process for stand-alone Apache Ignite servers does not require that you provide database credentials in a text file to communicate with Pega Platform nodes (clients). You provide this information by using JNDI support instead.

For more information, see Apache Ignite client-server clustering topology and the appropriate Deployment Guide.

New alerts for the Apache Ignite cluster

New Pega^® Platform alerts identify issues with Apache Ignite cluster members (nodes) that operate either in client mode or server mode. Refer to these alerts to diagnose problems with the Apache Ignite cluster and to protect against hard-drive failures or loss of data.

The new alerts are:

• PEGA0088: Client node unexpectedly disconnected from the cluster
• PEGA0089: A node left the cluster
• PEGA0090: Cluster segmentation causes subclusters to form
• PEGA0091: Data stored in one or more cluster caches is lost
• PEGA0092: Number of servers in the cluster falls below the recommended settings

For more information about alerts, see Performance alerts, security alerts, and Autonomic Event Services.

Enable email notifications on agent failure

You can now get email notifications each time an agent fails with a PEGA0010 alert. By receiving notifications on agent failure, you can immediately take action to restart or fix the agent. You can enable email notifications on the Agent Management landing page.

For more information, see Enabling notification on agent failure and PEGA0010 alert: Agent processing disabled.

Download the system state information for a node and the cluster

On the Cluster Management landing page, you can now download a JSON file that contains information about the current system state for a single node or for the whole cluster. You can use this file to compare persisted system state information across time, which can be helpful in debugging system problems. You also can use a new REST API with third-party tools to download the system state file.

For more information, see Downloading the system state.