What's new for HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.x
The following sections highlight new features and enhancements that are introduced in HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.x update packages.
Important: The HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.x
stream is no longer being maintained by HCL. To continue receiving feature
improvements, critical software fixes, and support, upgrade to the 9.0.1.x
stream.
- If you want to review the additions and changes that are included within the latest update packages, see What's new in HCL Commerce Version 9.0.1.x.
- If you want to review the additions and changes that were included within HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.0, such as changes from Version 8, see New features and functionality within HCL Commerce Version 9.
October 2018
- New JAVA code customization project
- A new customization project is available, crs-logic-ext. You can use this project to build custom JAVA extensions for remote stores.
- Running SQL during the CI/CD deployment phase
- You can now run SQL from the utility Docker container during deployment, or at any time, by calling the new RunSQL utility. This utility also takes advantage of a new centralized design for configuring database access.
- Db2 Docker image for development and test environments
- Decrease the time it takes to set up development and test environments by using a preconfigured Db2 Docker image as your database. This Db2 Docker image is not to be used in your staging or production environments.
September 2018
- New integration with WebSphere eXtreme Scale
- For HCL Commerce version 9.0.0.7 and later, you can integrate with IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale to improve performance in your high-volume implementation. The WebSphere eXtreme Scale licensed program is an elastic, scalable, in-memory data grid that you can use as an advanced cache for HCL Commerce. WebSphere eXtreme Scale processes a massive transaction volume with high efficiency and linear scalability. Integrating with WebSphere eXtreme Scale can provide significant performance benefits for high volume HCL Commerce customers.
- Search indexing performance enhancements using vertical sharding
- Sharding is a database operation that lets you apply parallel processing to index builds. Sharding has several flavors, and horizontal sharding is already enabled in HCL Commerce. Now you can do vertical sharding too. Vertical sharding speeds up the preprocessing stage of indexing and can be used alongside horizontal sharding.
- Monitoring HCL Commerce using Prometheus and Grafana
- A new white paper is available to demonstrate how to monitor HCL Commerce with Prometheus and how to check the sample dashboard in Grafana. Prometheus helps correct multi-dimension data, while the sample dashboard only shows a portion of the useful data. If the sample dashboard does not meet your business requirements, you can define your own dashboard based on the collected metrics and alter rules for alerts.
- Sterling Omni-Configurator contracted price support
- Support Sterling Omni-Configurator integration in B2B store, including all the features supported in B2C store and the B2B specific features, such as ontractual price, product entitlement, requisition list, and saved order.
August 2018
- Integration with Sterling Omni-Configurator
- Sell complex and configurable products on your storefront by integrating HCL Commerce with Sterling Omni-Configurator.
- OAuth 2.0 framework integration for social login on storefront
-
Implement OAuth 2.0 social login on your storefront, enabling users to easily log in to your store with their social networking accounts.
- Data manipulation REST APIs for personal information (PI) retrieval and deletion
- A new set of data retention REST APIs have been provided to help you integrate line-of-business tools. These APIs make it easier for business users to retrieve or remove personal information, for GDPR compliance or other business purposes.
- HCL Commerce deployment utilities
-
A deployment tool chain for HCL Commerce, HCL Commerce deployment utilities, is available to provide you with a set of reference utilities for deploying and operating HCL Commerce V9 in a Kubernetes environment.
This tool chain is available within GitHub and is provided for reference purposes only. HCL does not provide support for the usage of the tool chain.
- Index build time improvements
- Indexing has been optimized in this release. You can see improvements of up to 50% in index build time, depending on your local configuration and which optimizations you choose to enable.
July 2018
- Oracle database support
- You can now use Oracle 12c Release 2 (12.2) as your database in development and production environments. Support for Oracle databases is also added to the migration paths from version 7.0 and 8.0 to version 9.0.
- Search engine updated to use Apache Solr 7.3.1
- Your customers will experience faster search times due to the
performance improvements in Solr 7.3.1. Important: If you are migrating to HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.5+ from any previous version, you will need to update some database tables and configuration files. If you have customizations that use Solr 5.3.2, you can upgrade these customizations to work with the new Solr engine.
Learn more... - Reference solutions for the Docker container platform
- Reference solutions are provided for the applications on the Docker container platform. Because the Docker container platform can be set up based on varied technologies, the information provided in this table is only for your reference. You need to adjust the provided reference solutions or adopt other solutions based on your business needs in the production environment.
June 2018
- Run HCL Commerce Docker images as a non-root user
- By default, Docker images run with root privileges. You can now change this behavior and launch your HCL Commerce Docker containers as any non-root user.
- Building indexes using multiple JAVA Virtual Machines
- You can distribute the index and the indexing workload across two or more Search servers to improve indexing performance. This process, known as sharding, enables you to distribute different data ranges within the same virtual or physical machine, or across multiple machines.
- Support for migrating Elite starter stores from Version 7 Feature Pack 6 and Feature Pack 7 to Version 9
- You can now migrate your Elite starter store directly from Feature Pack 6 or Feature Pack 7 to Version 9.
- Included in the migration document is a guide to transforming existing
search BOD services to REST-based search services.
Learn
more...
May 2018
- Support for direct migration from Version 7 Feature Pack 6 and Feature Pack 7 to Version 9
- You can now migrate your Madisons or Aurora starter store directly from Feature Pack 6 or Feature Pack 7 to Version 9 without having to install Version 8.
- Included in the migration document is a guide to transforming existing
search BOD services to REST-based search services.
Learn more...
- New logging folder in Docker containers
- By default, log files (such as trace.log,
SystemOut.log) are now output to a unique folder
name that is derived from the container type and the
containerId. This new behavior helps you organize log files. Now, you can simply persist all container log files into the same folder on your Docker host machine or your central log server. Since every container has its own unique log folder, you can easily browse the log files of each container through your Docker host. - Remote caching solution using Apache Kafka and Apache ZooKeeper
- HCL Commerce performs frequent cache invalidation to ensure that your customers have access to the most up-to-date product listings, prices, offers and stock availability. You can now synchronize remote cache invalidation using Apache Software Foundation's Kafka and ZooKeeper services. Kafka is an open-source solution for coordinating real-time data feeds. ZooKeeper provides high data availability for distributed systems. Together they ensure that multiple store servers operate seamlessly as one storefront.
- Learn more...
- Search repeater and search subordinate port change
- To start Search server Docker container by retrieving parameters from container environment variables, if you are configuring a Search repeater or Search subordinate for HCL Commerce V9.0.0.3 or later, you need to specify the -e SOLR_MASTER_SERVER_URL=<Search_master_hostname:3738>.
- Learn
more...
April 2018
- Improved Docker container deployment process
- The following changes were made to simplify the deployment of Docker
containers and your HCL Commerce environment.
Note: Review the changes and reconfigure your
deployment process as needed. For example, if your container deployment
process uses the OVERRIDE_PRECONFIG parameter, reconfigure the process
by using CONFIGURE_MODE instead of OVERRIDE_PRECONFIG. Also, ensure that
you provide the mandatory start up parameters (such as SPIUSER_PWD, and
MERCHANTKEY_ENCRYPT) for each container. Otherwise, your deployment will
fail with the new Version 9.0.0.2 Docker images.- Replaced the OVERRIDE_PRECONFIG parameters with CONFIGURE_MODE. This new CONFIGURE_MODE provides options to either fetch Docker container start up parameters from Vault (CONFIGURE_MODE=Vault), or from container variables (CONFIGURE_MODE=EnvVariables).
- Added Quick Help documents to the Docker images. View the new help documents to learn more about the variables that you can pass in when you start a container.
- Added support to leverage Vault to issue internal certification between containers for your custom host names. By default, each HCL Commerce Docker container is configured to use a specific host name and default certificate to connect to other containers. With this new feature, you can pass in your custom host name and embedded scripts will leverage Vault as the certificate authority to apply the internal certificates for your containers.
- Added support to specify your custom spiuser password, merchant key, and datasource configurations during container start up through container variables. Previously, you needed to create a Dockerfile and build a new Docker image to update the configurations.
- Persisting log files to the Docker host machine
- Learn how to persist log files to the Docker host machine so that you can still troubleshoot issues when a container is inaccessible or destroyed.
- Updates to support GDPR
- HCL Commerce is updated to assist organizations with the European
Union's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into
effect on May 25, 2018. The following enhancements support companies
responding to customer requests about their personal data, such as:
- Providing SQL queries to help enable the deleting and updating of personal data.
- Enabling SSL communication between HCL Commerce servers.
- Providing more granular logging so that changes to personal data can be tracked.
- Providing storefront configuration to help enable just-in- time privacy notices to be displayed in the storefront.
- Providing the ability for shoppers to opt-in or opt-out of targeted personalization.
Learn more... - HCL Commerce Search improvements
- Parallel processing of large indexes has been enhanced. If you have very large catalog indexes, you can use parallel processing along with sharding and merging to index the data. Both horizontal and vertical sharding is supported.
- Store publish enhancements
- The store publish Gradle script now supports custom data template files by
using the dataTemplate parameter. As a result, your
custom data template file is then used by the
RemoteDataload scheduler job to populate your
store's bootstrap data and optionally your store's sample data.
In addition, the store publish Gradle script publishes sample data by default by using the crsGenerateSampleData parameter. As a result, your custom store can leverage sample data for the store, such as sample categories, products, marketing activities, and store locations.
Learn more...
January 2018
- Support for direct migration from Version 7 Feature Pack 8 to Version 9
- You can now migrate directly from Version 7 Feature
Pack 8 to Version 9 without having to install Version 8.
Learn
more...
- HCL Commerce Developer delta updates
- The HCL Commerce Developer update process creates a log of any files were added, updated or removed by the developer since the last installation, and also added, updated or removed by the update. This feature eliminates the need for a developer to manually scan through source code to see what was changed. The log (merges.log) records files that you might need to modify or merge to re-implement your custom code.
- HCL Commerce Build tool support in runtime environments
- The HCL Commerce Build tool is now available in the Utility server Docker container. Leverage the tool in runtime
environments to package and prepare custom code for deployment.
Learn
more...
- Support for Right to Access and Right to Erasure policies
- HCL Commerce provides a set of SQL queries that you can use to
satisfy data retention policies and adhere to data privacy laws.
Learn
more...