Published Release Notes

Node classification feature

With the node classification feature, you can group production nodes by different node types to segregate nodes by their purpose. Currently, agents and listeners can be associated with node types. If you start a node with a specific node type, the node runs only the associated agents and listeners for that node type. This enhancement improves performance and optimizes resources.

For more information, see Configuring node types for agents and listeners, Mapping listeners to node types, and Mapping agents to node types.

Default quiesce strategy changed to immediate drain

The default quiesce strategy has been changed to immediate drain, which allows you to continue to access a quiescing node to perform actions until the node is removed from the load balancer, regardless of your user role. When immediate drain is enabled, and a node is in the quiesce state, the requestor state is saved after every interaction. After the node has been removed from the load balancer, the saved state can be used to restore the requestor state on a new node in the next interaction with the server.

You can change the quiesce strategy default to slow drain by modifying the value of the session/ha/quiesce/strategy setting in the prconfig.xml file to be slowDrain.

Disregard this startup error for Oracle Weblogic deployments

If you install, upgrade, or update your Oracle Weblogic application server to Pega 7.2.2, disregard the error stack that begins with text similar to the following:

ERROR - WebLogic Server 12.1.3.0.0 Wed May 21 18:53:34 PDT 2014 1604337 Oracle WebLogic Server Module Dependencies 12.1 Tue Mar 11 15:35:15 MDT 2014 WebLogic Jersey Server Integration 3.0 Fri Feb 21 10:55:11 UTC 2014 must use JDK 1.8+ with WebSocket
2016-11-07 06:13:01,690 [ WIN-L3EEURCNCP1] [ STANDARD] (pr.DefaultAsyncSupportResolver) ERROR - Real error: Unable to configure jsr356 at that stage. ServerContainer is null

This message appears because the Pega 7.2.2 real-time notification feature initially tries to use WebSocket and then falls back to long polling. The Pega 7 Platform does not support WebSocket for Oracle Weblogic servers, and instead uses long polling for real-time notifications.

Disregard this Java script console message

Pega 7.2.2 introduced real-time notifications by using Comet technologies such as WebSocket and long polling. WebSocket provides the best results, but both WebSocket and non-blocking long polling must be supported by your application server. If your application server does not support WebSocket, you might see a JavaScript error that begins with text that is similar to the following text:

WebSocket connection to 'ws://vnbamdevapp01:8080/prweb/PRPushServlet/... Error during WebSocket handshake: Unexpected response code: 501_getWebSocket @ pzpega_ui_messaging_1802554968!!.js:1195 pzpega_ui_messaging_1802554968!!.js:3265 Websocket closed, reason: Connection was closed abnormally (that is, with no close frame being sent). - wasClean: falselog @ pzpega_ui_messaging_1802554968!!.js:3265 pzpega_ui_messaging_1802554968!!.js:3265 Websocket failed on first connection attempt. Downgrading to long-polling and resending

You can disregard this message.

However, to take advantage of the improvements to real-time notifications, enable support for WebSocket:

• For IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core, see your deployment guide for instructions on configuring the application server.
• For Red Hat JBoss, see your deployment guide for instructions on enabling WebSocket support.
• For Apache Tomcat application servers, consider upgrading to Apache Tomcat 7.0.53 or later which supports WebSocket.

Batch database processing improvements

Batch database processing has been enhanced to ensure that a constraint violation does not occur when you save transactions to a table with a foreign key dependency. Because batch processing changes the order of save operations, it is disabled for transactions with foreign key dependencies. Disabling batch processing ensures that a record with a foreign key dependency on another record will not be written before the record on which it is dependent.

For more information about how batch database processing works and how to enable and disable it, see Batch processing during database write operations.

prpcUtils script fails when the connection property file location is specified

If you run the prpcUtils command-line script and pass the --connPropFile argument to specify the location of the connection properties file, the script fails with the following error:

Problem: failed to create task or type ac:/antcontrib.org:for

This error does not appear if you do not pass the --connPropFile argument, or if you use the prpcServiceUtils scripts.

As a workaround, edit the prpcUtilsWrapper.xml file:

1. Open <distribution>\scripts\utils\prpcUtilsWrapper.xml.

2. Locate the following line:

   <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antcontrib.properties" uri="ac:/antcontrib.org">

3. Replace that line with the following line.

   <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" uri="ac:/antcontrib.org">

4. Save and close the file.

Data schema requires update after multitenant upgrade

After an out-of-place, multitenant upgrade to Pega 7.2.2 from Pega 7.2 or later, the PR_DATA_TAG_RELEVANTRECORD table that is in the existing data schema is not present in the new rules schema. The table must be present in the rules schema for the upgrade to the rules schema to work. Copy the PR_DATA_TAG_RELEVANTRECORD table from the existing data schema to the new rules schema, and then upgrade the new rules schema. The PR_DATA_TAG_RELEVANTRECORD table is not required to be in the rules schema. After the rules schema upgrade is finished, drop the copy of the table that is in the new rules schema before you upgrade the data schema.

Improve cluster security by limiting concurrent operator sessions

You can increase the security of a Pega^® Platform cluster by limiting the number of concurrent sessions allowed for each operator. Because operators typically do not require multiple concurrent sessions for performing their work, limiting the number of sessions reduces the chance that an unknown or untrusted person could access systems in the cluster. Use the new setting Number of concurrent sessions allowed for each operator on the Production tab of the System Data Instance form to configure the number of concurrent sessions for operators. You must restart your system when you change this setting. You can also create a list of operators by using the presence/maxsessions/operators/whitelist Dynamic System Setting, to which the maximum number of concurrent sessions setting will not apply.

For more information, see System form - Completing the Production tab.

New System Queue Management landing page

You can manage your system queues from the new System Queue Management landing page. You can use this landing page to quickly and efficiently debug applications without exiting Designer Studio. In addition to viewing items in a queue, you can defer, remove, and requeue items in a queue, stop items in progress, and view an item's XML.

As a result of this enhancement, the Broken Queue landing page has been removed.

For more information, see System Queue Management landing page.

Data encryption across search nodes

You can now encrypt communication among search nodes. Encryption secures the data that is transferred across nodes so that it cannot be accessed by unauthorized hosts. Encryption is enabled by default for new installations and upgrades from Pega^® 7.1.6 or earlier to Pega 7.3. Encryption is not enabled by default for upgrades from Pega 7.1.7 or later to Pega 7.3. You can enable and disable search encryption from the Search landing page or by using the indexing/distributed/enable_inter_node_encryption Dynamic System Setting.

For more information, see Enabling and disabling encryption for communication among search nodes.