The most interesting and helpful new features in Command Central 10.4

Here are highlights of the most interesting and helpful new features in Command Central 10.4. We considered feedback from field and based on high-volume usage of Software AG Command Central composite templates to make these improvements:

Optimizing runtime component lifecycle operations

Before 10.4, when applying any template, Command Central restarted all runtimes on the target nodes no matter what. Now, in 10.4, this behavior is optimized so that:

• By default, all run-time components are no longer restarted at the end of the composite template execution
• Runtime components are restarted during a layer application only if a configuration that requires a restart is applied in that layer
• All stopped components are started at the end of a layer application

The end result is the same as before (the stack is online), but restarts happen only when needed, speeding up cycles with configuration application and allowing zero downtime for such changes.

Configuration failures

Pre-10.4 Command Central the configuration failures were not reported as error, but as warnings at best. Now with Command Central 10.4, this behavior is improved with the goal of having the environment as defined in the template. If the configuration fails, the template fails early enough without any need of further manual or automatically checks of the target environment. By default, the composite templates work as before in order to be consistent with previous version. You can switch on this new functionally by setting the template DSL version to 1.2 (dslVersion="1.2" ) and adding the option abortOnConfigFailure: true . Any fan of the command line interface can also implement better automation tooling with the enhance CLI command:

sagcc exec templates composite apply <templatealias> --sync-job -e <expectedstatus> </expectedstatus></templatealias>

Improved template development

To help speed template development, Command Central 10.4 now provides a feature to save the complete instance as a template snippet. This will allow any template developer to simply configure the instance as desired, point Command Central to it and export it as yaml snippet. Command Central will capture the required information for:

• Listing installed products for the selected instance (from all runtime components of this instance)
• Instance properties
• Instance configurations

Remove old jobs view and more usability around Jobs UI

With Command Central 10.4, only one Jobs view exists now, which includes all functionalities of the legacy Jobs view. In addition to instant and better feedback on composite template execution, it also provides:

• Improved navigation
• Simplified view with all running jobs
• Enhanced error reporting

The screenshot below shows how different situations are not surfaced at the UI:

Job in progress:

Summary of job statuses:

Failed job with exact error on mouse over:

Please feel free to reach for the 10.4 Basic Training or ask a question at

CommandCentral-Swat@softwareag.com