Roadmap: Applying maintenance | HCL Digital Experience

Portal maintenance is delivered through two mechanisms: individual fixes (Fixes) and combined cumulative fixes.

For individual fixes, HCL encourages customers to remain up-to-date on the latest DX releases. As a result, DX only provides fixes on the latest release. Customers may be asked to upgrade to the latest DX release to assist with problem determination.

Fixes are provided, when necessary, for severe or security-related bugs. Combined cumulative fixes are delivered on a regular schedule. They provide a mechanism to deliver fixes faster, improve existing features, deliver new features, update documentation, and provide new documentation on a frequent basis. To deliver continuous improvements for your digital experience software, it is recommended that you apply the latest Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy to your environment.

Use this roadmap to learn more about the following information:
  • What the latest Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy contains
  • How to apply the latest combined cumulative fix
  • How to configure and enable new Combined Cumulative Fix features

Who should use this roadmap

Use this roadmap if you:
  • Installed HCL Digital Experience On-Premise and want to apply an iFix or the latest Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy.
  • Need a high-level view of which features or improvements are ready to use by default after you apply the latest Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy and which features need additional configuration.

Delivering updates

This section describes the strategy for delivering Digital Experience maintenance updates, including the release versioning scheme, to provide a clear maintenance and upgrade path for our customers.

What is continuous delivery?

Continuous delivery consists of short development cycles with continuous integration and automated tests. The result is a releasable product at any time. Continuous delivery has the following benefits:
  • Accelerated time to market
  • Building the right product
  • Improved productivity and efficiency
  • Reliable releases
  • Improved product quality
  • Improved customer satisfaction

The continuous delivery features are delivered with the combined cumulative fixes.

CF release versioning and update path

CF releases are sequentially numbered.
  • Between CF01 and CF19, the CF release versioning simply increments the 2-digit integer (CF01, CF02, CF03…….CF19). These CFs are applicable to an on-premise deployment.
    • The first Combined Cumulative Fix applicable for 8.5 is CF01.
    • The first Combined Cumulative Fix applicable for 9.0 is CF14.
    • The first Combined Cumulative Fix applicable for 9.5 is CF17.
  • With DX Container releases, HCL DX introduced a change in the CF naming scheme. After CF196, single versioning for both container and on-premise CF is applied. This change also signifies that fixes for both deployments are included into one Combined Cumulative Fix deliverable.
    Figure 1. Single CF versions for on-premises and container deployments
    CF versioning for on-premises and container deployments
Please see the following important points about this change:
  • Starting with CF196, versioning now implements a 3-digit integer that increments every release (CF196, CF197, CF198… and so on.)
  • Though the versioning is the same, the CFs are packaged separately and specific to each deployment. Please find the sample file naming for the CF package applicable to an on-premises deployment versus a container deployment.
    • On-premises: HCL-DX-CF196_Server_Update.zip, HCL-DX-CF196_Express_Update.zip, or HCL-DX-CF196_RemoteSearch_Update.zip.
    • Container: hcl-dx-kubernetes-v95-CF196.zip
  • CF196 and later releases are applicable to HCL DX 8.5, 9.0, and 9.5 on-premise deployments.
  • Customers can update directly to the latest CF release without installing multiple individual CFs (for example, 8.5 CF17 to 8.5 CF196).

Learning about this Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy

Some combined cumulative fixes focus on fixing known issues that are identified by Defect Articles. Other cumulative fixes are focused on new features.

Procedure

  1. View a list of Fixes delivered in a combined cumulative fix.

    Documentation resource: HCL Digital Experience Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy

  2. Get an overview of the features and improvements delivered in the latest combined cumulative fix. Click the document resource for features that you want to use. The documentation provides information on how to enable and use the new feature.

    Documentation resource: What's new in the Combined Cumulative Fixes

Applying a Combined Cumulative Fix

To apply a Combined Cumulative Fix, you must update the product files with IBM® Installation Manager. You must also update properties files, download the cumulative fix, and run ConfigEngine tasks to apply the changes to each profile in your system. The HCL Digital Experience 8.5.0.0 Combined Cumulative Fix readme file provides detailed instructions on how to apply a fix and planning information.

Before you begin

Use the Health Checker tool to identify issues with your installation. Use the Health Checker tool on your target system before you apply a Combined Cumulative Fix. You can learn more about how to apply the Health Checker tool in the readme instructions.

Individual fixes: Individual fixes (Fixes) are included in the Combined Cumulative Fix Strategy. However, if you are going to upgrade prior to CF08, the following iFixes are required. Install one of the following Fixes, based on your system, before you upgrade:

Procedure

To apply this cumulative fix, follow the readme file instructions that apply to your environment. You can find separate instructions for stand-alone, cluster, farm, and remote search environments from the overview topic.