Updating HCL Commerce overview

Releases and implementation lifecycles

HCL Commerce is provided in major, mod pack, and fix pack releases.

Typically, as you increase the time between HCL Commerce implementations, updates to HCL Commerce will become more difficult to implement. Jumps between major releases require migration, and more consideration with regards to tradeoffs and limitations between older and newer features, customizations, and solutions.

Inversely, smaller jumps between updates to HCL Commerce, such as between fix packs or mod packs, contain fewer challenges. These updates generally only include important fixes and improvements to functions that are specifically tailored to users of newer site features and solutions. Consequently, the update path for smaller updates is also much less intensive, requiring you to only rebuild your custom Docker images on newer base images before deploying them.

Downtime considerations

You must review your environment upgrade plan and consider the required downtime for upgrading your production environments and this impact on the availability of your live site.

A significant site upgrade generally involves bringing down an active deployment, upgrading the database schema, re-deploying the environment with updated custom docker images, as well as building new or modifying existing search indexes. The sum of these processes will typically result in some level of downtime for the production environment. To minimize this downtime, and to avoid disruption to live site traffic, production environment upgrades must be planned carefully. You must consider various factors, such as the method of deployment, the deployment configuration, and the current CI/CD pipelines for deploying the updated custom docker images on the production environment.

Updating HCL Commerce

Updates for HCL Commerce Version 9.1 environments are delivered as new Docker images in HCL Commerce releases. Updated Docker images include code fixes, security fixes, new features, and other enhancements.

To update HCL Commerce production environments, use the new HCL provided Docker images as a base. Build custom Docker images with your custom code and then deploy new containers. For more detailed information and steps, review the following topics.