Summary
Updates have been made within the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Stibo Systems Enterprise Platform (STEP) cloud-solution functionality. They include:
- General availability of Cassandra database across all data domains
- New self-service administration tool
- Additional automation
Note: The SaaS self-service administration tool is still in a ramp-up phase, so not all customers will have access to it. To learn more about the ramp-up phase / status, see the License and Component Lifecycle in the System Release and Patch Notes section of online help here.
Details
Cassandra database generally available across all data domains
With the release of 10.1, we support the use of the multi-tenant Cassandra database for SaaS across all data domains, including e.g., Automotive, Customer MDM, and all other domains. The use of Cassandra for SaaS deployment will be ramped up in the coming time.
Our support for the Cassandra database is based on using In-Memory database technology to ensure superior performance. Customers will also benefit from the distributed nature of the Cassandra database, which means less planned downtime for OS patching, for example, as well as the ability to survive the failure of individual database nodes without downtime. Strict segregation between data belonging to different customers is enforced using the Cassandra keyspace concept.
Customers on Cassandra will also benefit from the ability to do schema changes without going into single update mode. Execution of a schema change will run as a background process, so that customers can continue to work while the change is happening. It is only possible to have one change executed on a given schema object at a time; multiple changes to the same or depending objects will be queued.
In the future, use of the Cassandra database will be extended to cover more use cases that take advantage of its inherent capabilities for storing huge amounts of data.
New self-service administration tool
There is a new self-service administration tool for SaaS that enables customers to:
- Get an overview of their environments across Dev / QA sandboxes, pre-production, and production environments, including patch levels and other details.
- Refresh a sandbox environment from the production environment, either partially or from a clean start.
- Add or change IP filtering to limit access to environments to selected IP addresses.
The self-service administration tool will be extended in the future to cover more capabilities.
Additional automation
Additional automation has been introduced to avoid manual operations and reduce planned downtime:
- OS patching without downtime: This previously required a manual ticket flow and coordination of planned downtime. Now, OS patching can be automated to avoid downtime.
- Automatic capacity scaling: The capacity allocated to production and pre-production environments can now be automatically adjusted to what is needed at a given point in time without causing any downtime. This includes allocating more memory and adding / removing server capacity. Sandbox and pre-production systems that have not been used for some time will be put on standby, to automatically resume when they are accessed again.