April 2018 Release Announcement

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Innovation Release – Short support cycle

This release is Software AG’s second Innovation Release.

Issue 2, 2018 Download PDF

This type of release is intended for customers who want to get their hands on new features and capabilities as quickly as possible. However, it is not intended for long-term production use, as we only provided fixes for the first six months and support for the first 12 months. Customers who adopt this release will be required to migrate to the next standard release within 12 months. webMethods, Apama, Terracotta, Universal Messaging, MashZone NextGen and some Adabas & Natural products are included in the Innovation Release. For most ARIS, Alfabet and some Adabas & Natural products, this is a Standard Release with a normal support cycle.

To learn more about the Innovation Release and what it means for you, watch this nine-minute video and read this FAQ.

Adabas & Natural April 2018

Software AG is pleased to announce general availability for the Adabas & Natural April 2018 release – also comprising a new releases for ApplinX*. In support of Software AG’s “Adabas & Natural 2050+ Agenda” the new release focuses on innovations that enable customers to significantly reduce costs of operating and developing their mission- and business-critical Adabas & Natural applications.

Specifically, this release enables customers to:

  • Offload up to 90% of Adabas workload to IBM® zIIP™ with the new product Adabas for zIIPTM, significantly extending the scope of zIIP offloading provided with the earlier releases of Natural for zIIP.
  • Deliver innovation faster and at lower cost by automating previously manual testing of screen based business functions with the new product Natural Screen Tester (Innovation Release, for a description see: https://empower.softwareag.com/sl24sec/SecuredServices/Announcement/IR/InnovationRelease.htm), further strengthening support for Continuous Integration (CI) in a DevOps development approach.

Where to find more information:
Learn more about the highlights of the April 2018 release in the release overview document in the Tech Community.

For more details on specific features and a complete list of new, changed and enhanced functionality please refer to Release Notes in the respective product documentation:
  1. https://empower.softwareag.com/Products/Documentation/default.asp (requires login to Empower)
  2. http://techcommunity.softwareag.com/ecosystem/documentation/index.html (requires login to Tech Community) Adabas & Natural Product Management team Software AG

Alfabet 10.2

Alfabet 10.2 helps our customers keep pace with the demands of digitalization: increased speed, broader collaboration and greater security. It completes the integration with Jira®, a further step to closing the strategy-to-execution gap and to providing our customers all the tools needed for agile IT planning and delivery. Business users and top management involved in enterprise transformation are well-served with release 10.2 with new visualizations that help quickly identify what needs to change. These users also benefit from new API planning features that enable them to play an active role in determining how APIs are to be used for business innovation. Lastly, with all of the benefits digitalization brings, it also carries substantial risk to sensitive information. Significant effort was put into better data protection and secure system operation in this new release.

Enhancements include:
  • Full Jira integration
  • Enhanced API planning and management
  • New visualizations
  • Data anonymization
  • Feature Management

Where to find more information: Alfabet 10.2 release announcement

Apama 10.2

Software AG's Apama Streaming Analytics is the market-leading platform for streaming analytics and intelligent automated action on fast-moving big data. Enhancements in the latest release include:
  • Apache Kafka™ 1.0 support with prebuilt connectivity makes integration easier for developers
  • Improved HTTP/S connectivity makes it easier to for developers to work with dynamic HTTP calls with JSON™ in the request
  • Enhanced reflection for EPL “any” type allows developers to access event definition actions
  • All correlator REST status information available from within EPL applications
  • REST APIs have Swagger support making them easier to work with other API tools such as webMethods API Gateway
  • Docker® support, samples and documentation help when using Kubernetes® for container orchestration
  • Apama Docker images are available on Docker Store
  • Software AG Designer projects can be deployed in Software AG Command Central using composite templates improving the DevOps experience
  • Specific capital markets adapters upgraded and enhanced for increased performance, MiFID II compliance, certification and platform integration

Apama Community Edition now has a number of new developer-focused blog posts. See them at http://www.apamacommunity.com/

Where to find more information:
Release notes are at: http://documentation.softwareag.com/apama/index.htm

ARIS 10 Service Release (SR) 4

One of the major pillars to reach excellence is creating a digital twin of your organization. The new features of ARIS 10 SR 4 are designed to perfectly support this “Enterprise Digital Twin," on- premises or in the cloud.
 
Highlights are:
  • Global roll out of modeling conventions with automatic checks for modeling syntax, semantics and content consistency
  • Leading BPMNTM modeling support, ranked by OMG and supporting the full process modeling conformance class
  • Connect design and reality with process mining and new out-of- the-box ARIS Aware dashboards for strategy, Internet of Things (IoT) and SAP® projects
  • Increased end-user experience and acceptance through enhanced portal, diagram view and navigation
  • Support of large enterprise scenarios thanks to enhanced administration and contribution possibilities
  • Growing internationalization with right-to-left language support in model display for ease of use and broader target groups
  • Advanced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) support to ensure compliance until the deadline and beyond.
Where to find more information:

MashZone NextGen 10.2

MashZone NextGen 10.2 introduces significant new visual data analytics capabilities to the Digital Business Platform. The 10.2 release brings exciting new enhancements in the areas of dashboard interactivity and visual analysis, including:
  • Multi-select in dashboards filters and widgets (grid, pie, bar), including the new list widget
  • Visualization and widget enhancements, including the new date filter, value slider and rich text widgets
  • Export data from a widget to csv
  • Anonymous access to dashboards
  • Enhanced audit logging - including create, update, delete of MashZone assets, and user login and logoff
  • New highly available, scalable, and resilient architecture for streaming data visualization (originating from Apama and Digital Event Services)
  • Additional Command Central support for licenses, ports and certificates

Where to find more information:
Release Notes are available on: http://documentation.softwareag.com/webmethods/MashZone_NextGen/MashZone_NextGen_ Business_Analytics/index.htm

Terracotta 10.2

Terracotta 10.2 introduces key enterprise readiness features and analytical capabilities in Terracotta DB. With this release, Terracotta DB took a big leap forward to support cloud native deployments, security and operational usability. Some of the notable features of Terracotta DB 10.2 include:
  • AWS as a supported platform for Terracotta DB
  • Terracotta DB now supports Docker-based container orchestration using Kubernetes®
  • Advanced support for resilient failover through improved "failover-tuning" option
  • Resiliency support for improved reconnection for both Ehcache and TCStore clients
  • Security enhancements including SSL support for encryption and authentication
  • SQL-like query capability using new Terracotta Textual Query Language
  • Ad hoc query capability within Terracotta Management Console with new Terracotta DB Explorer
  • Numerous operational usability enhancements including latency statistics and query statistics monitoring
This release also includes enhancements to Terracotta Ehcache 10.2.

Where to find more information:

Universal Messaging 10.2

Universal Messaging is a high-performance, multi-protocol messaging platform designed to provide fast, guaranteed message delivery across all mainstream enterprise, web and IoT platforms. Universal Messaging 10.2 comes with these notable improvements:

  • Horizontal scalability, enabled with a simple configuration change
    • Publish and subscribe
    • Java® native API and Java® Message Service (JMS)
  • Heath checker tool enhancements
    • Improved usability
    • Cluster installation and environment consistency checks
  • Running Universal Messaging as a Windows® service or Linux® daemon
    • Using Software AG Installer, Universal Messaging can be installed so that is can run as a service or daemon
    • The service or daemon can be managed via scripts
  • Realm information collector
    • Providing an easy way to collate all the information you need to provide the Software AG Support organization when you raise an issue.
  • Documentation improvements
Where to find more information:
Release Notes are available on: http://documentation.softwareag.com/webmethods/universal_messaging/umessaging_vers.htm

Cumulocity IoT Core 9.0

Cumulocity IoT is a complete platform that supports rapid start and deployment to quickly prove value of solutions and deliver fast ROI. It is open and independent (device, protocol, IaaS agnostic) that supports different deployment options (cloud, on-premises and edge) and is able to grow with customer requirements. Cumulocity IoT combines our leading technologies ranging from secure device, cloud and enterprise integration over streaming and predictive analytics to process automation and application development.

Enhancement include:

  • Apama integration into Cumulocity IoT Cloud
    • Cumulocity measurements, events, alarms and operations are exchanged with Apama in both directions
    • One Apama correlator per tenant, subscribed as application
  • Cumulocity IoT Edge is an on-site, single-server variant of the proven Cumulocity IoT (core) platform, with specific extensions:
    • Ready-to-use cockpit and device management apps
    • Real-time analytics engine (Apama)
    • Database for historic data storage
  • Per tenant CEP engine
    • With 8.19, tenants can (optionally) be subscribed to dedicated CEP engine
  • Microservice
    • Microservice hosting improvements (HA, stability, hosting of Docker containers)
    • High availability: node failures and container failures, rolling updates.
    • Security: container-based isolation, resource quotas, centralized inbound request authentication, tenant access API and permission handling
    • Manage subscriptions using existing API and UI
    • Microservice modes: per-tenant/multi-tenant, multi-node/ single-node
    • Microservices SDK (Java and C# + documentation)
  • Token-based authentication
  • Enterprise edition (URL branding, branding editor, subtenants)
  • LWM2M 2.0 beta
  • Documentation improvements

Where to find more information:
Release Notes are available on: https://support.cumulocity.com/hc/en-us/sections/200381323-Announcements

Digital Event Services 10.2

Software AG Digital Event Services (DES) support event-based integration between Software AG products. The 10.2 release adds these capabilities:

  • Secure communication configuration through Command Central
  • Improved synchronous send
  • In-process service supports shared durable subscriber

Where to find more information:
More information is available at https://documentation.softwareag.com/webmethods/digital_event_services/dev10-1/index.htm

webMethods 10.2

Software AG’s Digital Business Platform powers digital transformation and enables any organization to become a Digital Enterprise. The webMethods suite, a core component of the Digital Business Platform, helps you achieve this transformation. Release 10.2 of the webMethods suite provides significant enhancements in every functional area of the suite.

Integration

  • Integration Server provides support for the WebSocket protocol whereby developers can create a WebSocket provider service and can communicate with a client using the WebSockets protocol.
  • Integration Server provides enhanced support for HTTP security headers and supports the Swagger format for describing REST APIs.
  • ActiveTransfer agent, which is a new component that can be installed directly on a remote system. It can be installed within an organization’s firewall or outside the firewall using Command Central.
  • Integration Server provides support for pause and publishing of messages provided by Universal Messaging.
  • Universal Messaging allows for horizontal scalability where users can specify a set of servers or clusters to connect to within a single logical session allowing the user to publish or subscribe to the same queue or topic across multiple servers or clusters.
  • The HealthChecker tool has been extended with many available checks and a new Realm Information Collector is a new command-line diagnostic tool that’s added.
  • CloudStreams server now supports MTOM method of exchanging binary data and efficient handling of large  payloads exchanged with web service providers and concurrent executions of cloud connector services.
  • There are many enhancements to the CloudStreams Development Plug-in as well as new and updated connectors for Cumolocity and Coupa®, among others.
  • Unit Test Framework allows you to record and analyze which Flow steps and map actions of your Flow service(s) are executed during a particular test launch. It provides user friendly reporting with various coverage reports.
  • webMethods Broker is now replaced by Software AG Universal Messaging. The use of webMethods Broker with webMethods 10.2 is deprecated.
  • With webMethods 10.1, Microservices Container supports the ability to add a circuit breaker construct to any flow service. Using a circuit breaker allows the service to handle errors gracefully and provides a consistent response to the end user.
  • With Integration Server 10.1, there is improved support for defining REST resources and enhanced support for creating REST APIs from Swagger files, offering support for resources with a base path (/) which is useful when the Microservices Container is used with container orchestration tools such as OpenShift® and Kubernates.

API management

  • API documentation enhancements include API details now showing tags defined for the API in the API Gateway and tags defined in swagger file being imported, editing API level tags in API Portal.
  • SOAP services that were REST-enabled and published to API Portal with both SOAP and REST details, are now displayed in API Portal as hybrid APIs.
  • API Gateway includes new API policies for data masking, request and response transformation, and CORS as well as enhancements to existing policies like invoking webMethods Integration Server.
  • API providers have more options in API Gateway when defining their service plans for use with API monetization and define rate and quota limits.
  • JSON™ payloads are natively supported by API Gateway, and this release provides support for JSON schema and JSONPath in multiple places that access the application.
  • API Gateway now provides a facility to define stages by supplying connection information to other API Gateways
  • API Portal customization has been simplified by making font and color theming configurable through customization user interface.
  • API try-out functionality has been enhanced to allow test invocations of API protected with JSON Web Tokens.

Dynamic Apps

  • This is the first integrated release of the new Dynamic Apps Platform including dynamic processes, tasks, case management, business rules, mobile, analytics and web app UI.
  • AgileApps can now invoke Dynamic Business Objects (DBO) processes in-proc on the same Integration Server where it is co- hosted with Integration Server in the same OSGi runtime.
  • An AgileApps case can now call a DBO process. It provides a list of start documents to initiate the DBO process as well as a map for mapping the case document to the process start document.
  • Business Rules now sends design-time auditing events for decision tables via Digital Event Services and supports the process actions “start process” and “join process” for DBO processes.
  • All BPMS components will support MySQL® (community and enterprise editions).
  • Optimize for Infrastructure and Optimize for Process now support MySQL Community Edition and MySQL Enterprise Edition as a relational database.
  • DBO can be monitored with Optimize for Process. KPIs can be created against DBO processes, and the Optimize dashboard will show both process engine and DBO process statistics.
Suite enhancements
The webMethods suite includes enhancements that improve functionality across multiple products:
  • webMethods products are now compliant with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines to strengthen and unify data protection for our users.
  • Software AG Command Central now supports management of Trading Networks configurations including template-based provisioning and management of Trading Networks instances and properties related to Trading Networks servers.
  • Command Central supports host and instance renaming during product migration, which allows cross-host migration and data center moves where old hosts used in product configuration need to be replaced with new hosts.
  • Command Central composite templates are now enhanced to handle support patches.

Where to find more information:
http://documentation.softwareag.com/webmethods/wMSuite_rln.htm

Zementis 10.2

Zementis is a decision engine for operational deployment, integration and execution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning models. With the 10.2 release we have added deep learning support for the first time ever to Zementis based on a new representation of deep neural networks in the Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML). Enhancements include:
  • Support for deep learning, specifically Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures including LeNet, MobileNet and VGGNet
  • New "look and feel" for Zementis REST UI and updated Zementis REST API to OpenAPI Specification 2.0
  • New Python® library Nyoka to export PMML from Python-based ML/DL environments like Scikit-learn, Keras, TensorFlow® or Caffe
    • Replaces earlier versions of Python-based Zementis exporters (Py2Pmml)
    • Supports 15 ML algorithms
    • Supports deep neural networks here in particular CNNs in a new, very compact version inside PMML in one file
    • Supports writing customized exporters using the complete definition of the latest PMML schema plus extensions for deep neural networks

Where to find more information:
Release Notes are available at http://documentation.softwareag.com/zementis/index.htm