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What's New


This page lists the main new features in XAP 12.1 (Java and .NET editions).

It’s not an exhaustive list of all new features. For a full change log for 12.1 please refer to the new features and fixed issues pages.

Functionality

XAP Manager

The XAP Manager (or simply The Manager) is a component which stacks together the LUS and GSM along with Zookeeper and an embedded web application which hosts an admin instance with a RESTful management API on top of it.

For more information see XAP Manager

Change code without restarts

When executing user code on the space (e.g. space tasks), the space automatically loads the code from the remote client and caches it for future executions. Since the code is cached, modifications are ignored, and users are forced to restart the space whenever they modify their code.

Starting in 12.1, you can use the @SupportCodeChange annotation to tell the space your code has changed. For example, start with annotating your task with @SupportCodeChange(id="1"), and when the code changes, set the annotation to @SupportCodeChange(id="2"), and the space will load the new task.

The space can store multiple versions of the same task side-by-side (ideal for supporting clients using different versions). This feature also applies for other features which execute user-defined code at the space, namely custom change and custom aggregate.

For more information see Change code without restarts

Customize MemoryXtend cache warmup

MemoryXtend includes a cache to store recently used entries in memory. You can now control this cache warmup using one or more queries to determine which entries should be cached.

For more information see MemoryXtend Initial Load

Querying text properties made a great step forward, with full text search capabilities. For example, to find Email entries which contain a word similar to salary in the title property, use new SQLQuery(Email.class, "title text:match ?", "salary~1").

Full text search is using Lucene under the hood, so you’re getting all the power of lucene within your XAP application.

For more information see Full text search

Get Jetty port within your application

Web applications which need to know which port they’re running on can now get it directly from the context properties.

For more information see Jetty Processing Unit Container - Port Numbers

Administration

GS Agent Enhancements

The GS Agent now supports a new, user-friendly syntax. For example, to start 2 GSCs simply specify --gsc=2.

The old syntax is still supported for backwards compatibility.

For more information see gs-agent options (or run gs-agent with -h)

Simplified Replication Configuration for Transactions

Replication configuration is affected by the size of the redolog, measured in replication packets, and various thresholds and policies which dictate system behavior. Since transactions are replicated in a single packet (to ensure atomicity), redolog size was not granular enough, as transactions can include few or many sub-operations. Starting 12.1, replication packets have weight, where simple operations weigh 1 and transactions weigh as the sum of their sub-operations, which makes it easier to configure replication.

For more information see Weight Policy.

Custom Security Support for Web Management Console

The Web Management Console (web-ui) now supports custom security, same as the gs-ui.

For more information see Web Management Console and Custom Credentials.

SSL Support for Web Management Console

The Web Management Console (web-ui) can now be configured to use SSL.

For more information see SSL Connection.

Troubleshooting

A couple of improvements which can come in handy for troubleshooting:

Include Terminated Processes in Dump File

The dump functionality is useful for gathering log files from system components. However, up to now it only included components which are currently running - if a process has terminated and restarted, only its current log would be collected. Starting 12.1 you can specify if you want to collect terminated processes as well when you perform a dump.

For more information see Dump.

Verbose System Report

Whenever a service grid component is started, it prints a system report in its log file. Starting 12.1, if you increase the log level from INFO to CONFIG or beyond, this report will be more verbose and include all system properties and environment variables, which can come in handy for troubleshooting some problems.

For more information see Logging - Troubleshooting.

Third Party Upgrades

  • Jetty support has been enhanced to include version 9.2.21
  • Curator integration has been upgraded to 2.12.0
  • Lucene integration has been upgraded to 6.4.2 (affects geospatial and full text search)
  • Spatial4J integration has been upgraded to 0.6 (affects geospatial)

In addition, the JVM bundled with XAP.NET hase been upgraded to Java 8 update 121.