Published Release Notes

Additional upgrade scripts for new columns

In Version 6.2, additional columns (Major, Minor, and Patch) containing ruleset Version information were added to 15 tables in the PRPC database. When upgrading from a pre-Pega 7 release, scripts must be manually run after the upgrade to populate these columns.

These scripts are located in the Resource Kit, under Additional Upgrade Scripts.

• If upgrading to a single schema, run both scripts.
• If upgrading to a split schema, run the _data script against the data schema and run the _rules script against the rules schema.

Choose the scripts for your database type:

• db2zos_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• db2zos_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• mssql_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• mssql_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• oracle_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• oracle_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• postgres_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• postgres_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

• udb_rulesetversion_columns_data.sql
• udb_rulesetversion_columns_rules.sql

Database

Improvements to data handling were made for search indexing, agent processing, and filtering.  Scripts were provided for proper population of the database tables.

• Importing data from shared obj-external tables is now supported.
• A validation warning will now display when an unexposed property is used in filter or join conditions.
• A Global Search index may now be created across two databases.
• Agent processing on multiple nodes has been improved.
• Improvements were made to controls in Report Definition pages which are used in a dynamic grid.
• Filtering functionality involving special characters has been enhanced.
• Scripts have been provided to populate the RuleSetVersion Major, Minor, and Patch columns.

System Management

Refinements were made to out-of-place upgrade documentation and processes, as well as for how handling is performed for all of the database vendor specific nuances related to a deploying into a split schema environment.

• A script was created to run the data schema upgrade for z/OS systems.
• In a split-schema configuration, indexing has been enhanced.
• The product installer has been enhanced.
• The stand-alone Static Assembly Utility does not require a password for its process.
• The UpdateManager tool has been improved.

Improved search indexing performance

Search indexing now uses a queue processor to improve indexing performance. Indexing can automatically restart if the database goes down temporarily. This saves time and manual action. As a result of using the queue processor for indexing, the following changes have been made to the Search Landing page.

• You cannot cancel indexing from the Search landing page. Cancel indexing by stopping the queue processor from the Data flow landing page.
• The progress message is not shown. View progress on the Queue Processor landing page.
• Queue processor information has been added.

For more information, see Stopping or pausing search reindexing.

More visibility of your production level

You can now see the production level of your environment in a new gadget that is available in all Pega Platform™ workspaces. To ensure that you immediately recognize your current environment, you can give it a unique name that is displayed when you click the gadget. In addition to specifying your production level and environment name on the System form in Dev Studio, you can now specify those values on the System & nodes page in Admin Studio.

For more information on Admin Studio, see Modifying your environment name and production level.

For more information on Dev Studio, see Specifying the production level.

Rule revalidation after updating properties without restarting nodes

When you update certain property attributes, such as a property's maximum length, rule types that reference the property might not reflect the change. You do not always have to restart nodes to revalidate the referencing rules when they cannot be resaved, for example, when they are in a locked ruleset. For Pega Platform™ 8.1 and later, for non-stream rules, such as activities, data transforms, and so on, use the reassemble API in Admin Studio or truncate the assembled classes table.

For stream rules, such as sections, harnesses, paragraphs, and so on, reassemble the rules and restart the nodes. For more information, see More about properties.

For previous versions of Pega Platform, use the System Management Application (SMA) to revalidate stream and non-stream rules.

Changes in JSON results when checking the health of your system

Beginning with Pega Platform™ 8.2, the JSON results that are returned when you ping a Pega Platform instance have changed. JSON results now include node type and health information, including test name, status, state, and node ID. The following samples show JSON results from versions before 8.2 and as of 8.2.

JSON results for pre-Pega Platform 8.2:

{ "duration":"3954.448601", "count":"0" }

JSON results for Pega Platform 8.2 and later:

{"node_type":["WebUser"],"health":[{"last_reported_time":"2019-02-14T16:10:49.589Z","test_name":"Sample-Stream-Check","status":"success"}],"state":"healthy","node_id":"10.10.10_samplenode"}.

Improved security after hiding SQL values

In Pega Platform™ version 8.6, the default value of the showSQLInList dynamic system setting changes to FALSE, which suppresses the visibility of the SQL values in the Clipboard tool. With this setting disabled, when you run a report definition the clipboard does not display sensitive values in the pxSQLStatementPre and pxSQLStatementPost properties, which makes your system less vulnerable. If you want to display the values, in the .prconfig file, set the prconfig/security/showSQLInListPage/default to TRUE.

Additional connection pool parameters for JDBC URL external databases

For improved external JDBC URL database connection performance, Pega Platform™ now supports multiple Hikari connection pool parameters directly in the Data-Admin-DB-Name rule. Previously, Pega Platform supported a limited number of connection pool parameters to optimize your database connection using dynamic system settings (DSS). Now you can optimize your JDBC URL connection pool sizing to meet your traffic requirements through additional parameters without switching rules. Additional parameters include client-request parameters to maximize the connectivity to your external databases.

For more information, see Creating and updating external database instances with JDBC URLs.

Upgrade impact

During an upgrade to Pega Infinity™ release 8.6 and later, clients who previously specified their JDBC URL connection parameters through dynamic system settings (DSS) or prconfig file must delete the corresponding DSS or prconfig elements immediately after upgrade. The old parameters that you previously specified through DSS or the prconfig file override the equivalent parameters that you specified in the JDBC URL rule after your upgrade.

For more information about deleting your previous DSS or prconfig elements, see Deleting dynamic system setting connection parameters and Deleting connection parameters in the prconfig file.

Enhanced PEGA0104 alert

The PEGA0104 alert now includes the thread pool size, a list of activities that are waiting in the queue for a thread to become available, and details on how long it took to capture the thread dump.  By default, the alert also includes the thread dump.  You can disable the inclusion of the thread dump by changing the related configuration option. 

For more information, see PEGA0104 alert: Background tasks have exceeded a threshold time when attempting to acquire a thread from pool or executor.