What's new

2.2.5

MongoDB version 3.6 End of life (EOL) and compatibility flags

To anticipate the MongoDB 4.0 upgrade plan for HCL™ Accelerate version 2.3.0, various scenarios require your consideration for successful implementation. For Docker Compose upgrades and new installation of various HCL™ Accelerate versions, the preparation for the upcoming MongoDB 4.0 version requires attention to the associated setFeatureCompatibilityVersion MongoDB flag addressed in the following table:

	Scenario 1	Scenario 2	Scenario 3
HCL™ Accelerate version	1.4.4 or earlier	Upgraded from 1.4.4 or earlier to a version between 1.4.5 to 2.2.4	New installation of 1.4.5 or higher
MongoDB version	3.4	3.6	3.6
MongoDB compatibility flag version	3.4	3.4	3.6
Solution A	Upgrade to version 2.2.5, then to 2.3.0	Upgrade to version 2.2.5, then to 2.3.0	Upgrade directly to version 2.3.0
Solution B	N/A	Run MongoDB command db.adminCommand( { setFeatureCompatibilityVersion: 3.6 } ) to set compatibility flag to version 3.6, then upgrade to version 2.3.0	N/A
Solution C	Contact support.	Contact support.	N/A

Note: Refer to the MongoDB site for details on the setFeatureCompatibilityVersion flag.

2.2.4

Performance enhancements

Properties and Versions tabs load properly on the deployment plan pages.

Bug fixes

• On the State of Sprint Report, clicking View issues in sprint expands and displays issues in tabular format.
• Altair GraphQL Client is accessible.

2.2.3

Performance enhancements

General performance fixes on the deployment plan pages.

Bug fix

Custom metrics support average and mean.

2.2.2

Bug fixes

• Fixed dots not moving to next stage if newer and older versions are in the same stage. Dots move when the API is invoked.
• Selecting versions for a deployment template only displays its own values versus those of a previously selected version.
• GraphQL Playground works in offline scenarios.

2.2.1

Metric definitions updates (Insights only)

Clarified metric definitions for the following: lead time, cycle time, load, throughput, and distribution.

3rd party image updates

Updated bitnami/rabbitmq to version 3.8.9

Updated bitnami/nginx to version 1.19

Bug fixes

• On the Templates page accessed via Releases > Templates, from the overflow icon when you select Copy this plan for a template, the template is copied and the Template duplicated successfully modal window is displayed.
• On the Integrations page accessed via Settings > Integrations, from the overflow icon when you select Delete for an integration, the Are you sure you want to delete this integration? delete confirmation modal window is displayed as shown below.

  

• Improved the install experience on OpenShift version 4.4 and greater. OpenShift templates will no longer need to be manually modified prior to install.
  Note: Red Hat dropped support for OpenShift version 4.3 in December 2020 and therefore, we can no longer support it from a product perspective.
• Delete application option in release pipeline deletes all other applications known issue in version 2.2 is fixed.
• Improved the robustness of continuous-release-poller connection with MongoDB.
• Improved load time of Home page.
• Selecting versions for a deployment template only displays its own values versus those of a previously selected version.
• LDAP connections timing out corrected with added reconnect setting to the client.

2.2.0

Pipeline automatic promotion improvements

Auto promote now applies to the Input environment for UrbanCode Deploy and Jenkins applications which enables the automatic deployment to other environments.

User interface enhancements

Dashboards can be marked as a favorite and they are displayed on the new My Favorites tab.

New dashboard table view provides for filtering dashboards. You can filter the table to see only the dashboards you own.

Enhancement added to lead and cycle time metrics

Detailed tabular information can be attained from lead time and cycle time metrics.

Additional value stream view data by and quick filters features

You can now both view dots and limit data by priority, type, release, and sprint.

HCL Software Factory (SoFy)

HCL SoFy 2.2 is now available on HCL Software Factory (SoFy). For more information, visit the HCLSoFy website.

Known issues

Delete application option in release pipeline deletes all other applications. If you experience this issue, restore your deployment plan from its Change History tab. This issue is corrected in version 2.2.1.

Plug-in updates

For new installations of HCL Accelerate, you may have to install the plug-in and then integrate it in HCL™ Accelerate. On the Integrations page, an Install button is displayed for this plug-in type.

Bug fixes

• The release-events-api service now starts last to ensure a safer start-up order.
• The pipeline's Schedule deployment and Join release functionality should now work as expected when deploying with a Jenkins application that has not yet run.

2.1.3

Enhancement

On the Insights All Dashboards page, you can view dashboards in either card or list view. In the list view, you can sort fields in ascending or descending order by clicking on the following field names:

• Name
• Description
• Creator
• Last Modified
• Modified By

2.1.2

Enhancement

For the UrbanCode Deploy applications in a pipeline, you can auto-promote from the input to stage environments. Click the icon next to Input and then select Auto promote.

Bug fix

Corrected VSM load error GraphQL Error: Expected Iterable, but did not find one for field ParticleViewMode.sprints when ParticleViewMode.sprints is stored as null.

Configuring release-events-api memory limits

For the release-events-api performance issues in Kubernetes or OpenShift installations with explicit overrides of limits and requests memory allocations in the deployment, the following workaround provides guidelines to address loss of system stability associated with how the non-default settings were set up in the configuration. This issue is typically not encountered if the aforementioned explicit overrides are not implemented in the configuration. If more than 2 GBs of memory are required, perform the following procedure:

1. Determine the memory requirement.
2. Under spec > template > spec > containers in your yaml file, locate the line image: urbancode/velocity-se-release-events-api:x.x.x.xx.
3. Add the command override as a sibling entry to image: in the form of the following:

   
        image: urbancode/velocity-se-release-events-api:x.x.x.xx
        command:
          - node
          - --max-old-space-size=xxxx
          - /release-events-api/release-events-api.min.js
            

4. On the command line - --max-old-space-size=xxxx, enter the maximum memory requirement in the appropriate units.

2.1.1

2.1.0

Forward proxy support

Forward proxy communication with HCL™ Launch is now supported. While a reverse proxy is not fully supported a fallback mechanism is in place. The fallback mechanism eliminates the need for callbacks from HCL™ Launch. This allows for a more robust communications with HCL™ Launch.

Support added for issue.sprints.active as a stage query to the DevOps query language.

Integrated with HCL Software Factory (SoFy)

HCL™ Accelerate is now available on HCL Software Factory (SoFy). SoFy is a catalog of Kubernetes enabled products as docker images and helm charts, hosted in a cloud-native registry. For more information, see the HCLSoFy website.

Gate enhancement

Rules can be created for gates that can be used to automate the gate process.

Metrics type rules can be defined and a gate set based upon the rule.

Metrics updates

Added distribution metric to Insights, metrics bar, and VSM table.

Metrics type rules can be defined and a gate set based upon the rule.

Required software updates

The Jenkins UrbanCode Velocity plug-in is now prerequisite and must be installed. The allows for running Jenkins jobs as a part of a deployment plan in HCL™ Accelerate. Version 2.1.0 of the plug-in is required. For more information about the plugin, see the Jenkins website.

Bug fixes

Fix to correctly display Group by: Week data in a chart.

2.0.5

Jenkins processing updates

Jenkins tasks are automatically failed if the integration with the Jenkins server is not available.

Deployment plan updates

Release participants can now see list of assigned users and groups on deployment plan tasks.

2.0.4

This release includes an announcement about advanced capabilities using HCL™ Accelerate and IBM® UrbanCode™ Release. See the HCL™ Accelerate 2.0.4 includes IBM UrbanCode Release and delivers advanced capabilities for your organization’s DevOps processes document for details.

Value stream updates

A list of favorite value streams can be create by marking a value stream as a favorite. The list can be prioritize to quickly locate a value stream.

License sharing

Starting with IBM® UrbanCode™ Release version 6.2.4.1 and HCL™ Accelerate 2.0.4 a single pool of floating and authorized licenses can be shared by users of the two products. For example, an user assigned a authorized user license type can use the same license for accessing both IBM® UrbanCode™ Release and HCL™ Accelerate.

HCL™ Accelerate users can now be assigned an authorize license key by selecting Reserve License on the Users page.

Value stream updates

Parser type plug-in code has been updated to fix a problem with the NPM wrapper when there are no plug-in properties.

Support added for issue.sprints.active as a stage query to the DevOps query language.

New Pipeline Designer role

The new Pipeline Designer role allows a user to edit a pipeline but not able to run it.

Gate enhancements

The rules and reason for failure is displayed when a gate fails.

Performance updates

The time it takes to load a list of Jenkins jobs when mapping a list to environment has been improved.

Improved load time of previous environment versions in pipelines.

2.0.3

Performance updates

Changes to code for paginating user tables has been changed to increase performance when loading user lists.

The time it takes to load a list of Jenkins jobs when mapping a list to environment has been improved.

Improvements made to processing of manual tasks to improve processing time and eliminate an error exception logged when an imported task did not have the groupsAndUsers property defined.

Plug-in updates

Parser type plug-in code has been updated to fix a problem with the NPM wrapper when there are no plug-in properties.

2.0.2

Deployment plans can add task dependencies from the user interface. Plug-in image versions are now displayed on Plugin page. Improved reserved participants to include LDAP and SSO users and check reservation availability. Added LDAP and SSO users alongside local users in a single users list. Bottleneck detection is now based on Lead Time definition.

2.0.1

Scalability of services

The main HCL™ Accelerate services can now scale to handle larger installations and greater amounts of data.

Locking of releases

The release manger can change a release status to lock. No changes can be made to the release after it is locked. Request for changes must be This gives the release manager control over last minute changes and ensures no changes are made after a final review. The lock is set on the Release Overflow page.

Environment gating

Users can now manually approve versions and gate environments based on approvals. The gate fails if approval requirements are not met. If a version does not pass all approvals the release manager can override the deployment. This feature provides for governance and compliance of open source tools and fragmented tools. This feature is located on the Environment Overflow page.

Built in reports

A new State of Sprint report allows for gathering statics of the value stream in relationship to a sprint. This report is helpful to a scrum master or manager in reducing risk of the current sprint and look at older sprints. You can access the report on the Reports page.

Plug-in SDK

Using the plug-in SDK you can create your own plug-ins and upload them to HCL™ Accelerate. To access to the plug-in SDK, click Settings > Integrations > Download Plugin SDK.

Bottleneck detection

Using machine learning, the model looks at current and previous state of a value stream to determine which stage the user should focus on first. This algorithm is always updating with new information to locate the next largest bottleneck. Types of bottlenecks include: Long Wait Time – the average time of stage is longer than any other by a substantial amount Batching – items pile up then are released at the same time In-Flow and out-flow mismatch See the Value Stream page Metrics Bar or Metrics Table fields.

Contributor and Load Metrics

Two new metrics are now available: Contributor Count and Load Count

• Contributor count shows how many users are working on items in the Value Stream. The metric is based off the stages in Lead Time (work select -> customer) and counts how many unique individual owned items in those stages. Allows the tool to compare other metrics to rationalize about other metrics.
• Load is also based off Lead Time and is a count of all the items in the stages at any given time. This allows you to see if there is a correlation of how much work is truly in progress vs how much is getting done. Usually there is a sweet spot to not give too much work and get the right amount out. With both our metrics are in a state where we can start rationalizing about different strategies without customers and how to use them correctly. See the Value Stream page Metrics Bar or Metrics Table fields.

2.0.0

Scalability of services

The main HCL™ Accelerate services can now scale to handle larger installations and greater amounts of data.

Locking of releases

The release manger can change a release status to lock. No changes can be made to the release after it is locked. This gives the release manager control over last minute changes and ensures no changes are made after a final review. The lock is set on the Release Overflow page.

Environment gating

Users can now manually approve versions and gate environments based on approvals. The gate fails if approval requirements are not met. If a version does not pass all approvals the release manager can override the deployment. This feature provides for for governance and compliance of open source tools and fragmented tools. This feature is located on the Environment Overflow page.

Built in reports

A new State of Sprint report allows for gathering statics of the value stream in relationship to a sprint. This report is helpful to a scrum master or manager in reducing risk of the current sprint and look at older sprints. You can access the report on the Reports page.

Plug-in SDK

Using the plug-in SDK you can create your own plug-ins and upload them to HCL™ Accelerate. To access to the plug-in SDK, click Settings > Integrations > Download Plugin SDK.

Bottleneck detection

Using machine learning, the model looks at current and previous state of a value stream to determine which stage the user should focus on first. This algorithm is always updating with new information to locate the next largest bottleneck. Types of bottlenecks include:

• Long Wait Time - the average time of stage is longer than any other by a substantial amount
• Batching - items pile up then are released at the same time
• In-Flow and out-flow mismatch

See the Value Stream page Metrics Bar or Metrics Table fields.

Contributor and Load Metrics

Contributor metrics shows how many users are working on items in the Value Stream. This metric is based off the stages in Lead Time and includes the number of unique individual owned items in those stages.

The Load metrics is also based off Lead Time and includes a count of all the items in the stages at any given time. You can use this metric to see the amount of work that is in progress versus the amount of work being completed.

Access these metrics from the Value Stream page using the Metrics Bar or Metrics Table fields.