Published Release Notes

Simplified support for external log management systems

Simplified support for external log management systems such as ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) makes it easier to implement an external log management system. An external log management system can improve access to system log files that help diagnose and debug issues by eliminating the need to download log files from each node in the cluster.

For information about configuring ELK, see Configuring ELK for log management.

For information about using Kibana to view log files, see Pega logs in Kibana.

Clustering equal to none might cause errors

Some Pega 7 Platform features might not work when theidentification/cluster/protocolsetting in the prconfig.xml file is set to none. Some features that might not work are remote tracing and management actions on the node from the Requestor Management and Agent Management landing pages. Setting the clustering protocol to none is not recommended and will not be supported in a future Pega 7 Platform release.

Search reindexing is automatically triggered

Reindexing on index host nodes is now triggered automatically when no other index node exists in the cluster, eliminating the need for you to manually clean up old items and start reindexing. In addition, offline index host nodes are removed as index host nodes during normal shutdown and startup of any node in the cluster. As a result, you might have to add back a node as an index host node on the Search landing page. You can configure a node to always be an index host node or to never be an index host node by using the JVM -Dindex.directory option as described in Managing Elasticsearch index host nodes outside of the Search landing page.

You can turn off automatic reindexing by using the indexing/distributed/automodecleanupandreindex Dynamic System Setting.

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.

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.

Push notifications and Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.6

Pega^® Platform push notifications can use WebSockets and long polling. However, for WebLogic Server 10.3.6, the push notifications feature does not work. To disable the feature, contact Pegasystems Global Customer Support.