Discontinued functionality in HCL Commerce Version 9

If you are migrating from an earlier version of HCL Commerce, be aware of the various features removed from this release. Most of the discontinued functionality in this release is as a result of architectural changes, when there is a replacement or alternative function available the alternative is described.
Discontinued features are those features that were previously announced as deprecated, and are now removed from the product. The following features are discontinued in this release of HCL Commerce.

Operating systems and environments

In HCL Commerce Version 9 the product available as Docker images. You can run HCL Commerce Version 9 on any platform supported by Docker. HCL Commerce Version 9 is no longer available for installation on a local machine on these operating systems: AIX, IBM i, and Windows.

Recommended action: Deploy the HCL Commerce Version 9 Docker images on a platform that Docker supports.

Web servers

Support for Microsoft Internet Information Server is discontinued.

Recommended action: Use IBM HTTP Server.

Database servers

Support for the Derby database is discontinued.

Recommended action: Use an IBM Db2, or Oracle database.

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.11.0 or later

WebSphere Performance Monitoring Infrastructure (PMI)

The WebSphere Commerce performance monitoring feature is discontinued. This feature was deprecated after Version 7.

The Java classes related to the WebSphere Commerce PMI module are deprecated. These classes are in the following java packages.
  • com.ibm.commerce.performance.monitor which contains the following deprecated classes:
    • CommerceCounterGroupModule
    • CommerceCounterModule6
    • CommerceCounterModuleBase
    • CommercePerformanceFactory
    • CommerceRuntimeCollaborator
    • Constants
    • CounterTreeItem
    • GroupTreeItem6
    • GroupTreeItemBase
    • Messages
    • StartTreeItem
    • WcsPerfTimer
    • WcsPerfType
  • com.ibm.websphere.pmi which contains the following deprecated class:
    • WcsCounterGroupPerf
HCL Commerce Version 9.1.2.0 or later

Registry Manager

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.2.0 or laterNote: From HCL Commerce version 9.1.2.0 and above, Registry Manager can maintain a set of registries from Administration Console as well as Management Center. However, Management Center is recommended.

Integrations

Sterling Configure, Price, Quote

In previous releases of HCL Commerce you could integrate with Sterling Configure, Price, Quote to enable an HCL Commerce site to sell complex configurable products (dynamic kits).

Recommended action: Use the Modular Omni-Configurator solution provided with IBM Sterling Configure, Price, Quote V9.5.0. The Modular Omni-Configurator is lightweight, and enabled for multi device support. The new Modular configurator is a component of IBM Sterling Configure, Price, Quote V9.5.0 that is independently deployable and provides a RESTful JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) service for scalability, cost-effective integrations, and seamless use of Sterling Configure, Price, Quote on a mobile devices. For more information, see Modularized Omni-Configurator.

Features and functions

Managed files and managed directories

Support for managed files and managed directories is discontinued. In previous versions of HCL Commerce a managed file was any file uploaded to HCL Commerce by using the Management Center Assets tool or created by using the fileloader utility. The managed file was written to the HCL Commerce database then after certain criteria were met, the managed files were copied from the HCL Commerce database to the HCL Commerce EAR file. In HCL Commerce Version 9 storefront assets are separate from the HCL Commerce EAR file so this functionality is no longer necessary.
HCL Commerce Version 9.1.8.0 or laterNote: Managed files and managed directories are re-introduced from HCL Commerce version 9.1.8.0 and above. See Assets tool documentation for more information.
Recommended action:
  • Managed files and managed directories were re-introduced in HCL Commerce Version 9.1. Upgrade to HCL Commerce version 9.1.8.0 or greater.
  • Use a third-party file server to manage file assets. For compatibility with previous releases, static assets can also be served from the Store server or the Transaction server. Regardless of the location of the static asset, Management Center users refer to the assets by using the URL.

Struts version 1.x enterprise Java web application features

The following capabilities available with Struts 1.x are no longer available in Version 2. For Struts migration information, see Migrating customized struts assets.
  1. Refreshing the command, view, and URL registries in the Administration Console without a server restart is no longer supported.

    The default Command registry, View registry, and URL registry are loaded from struts configuration files. Beginning with Version 9.0.1.0, refreshing those registries in the Administration Console without a server restart is not supported.

    Recommended action: In version 9, all configuration files including Struts configuration files are deployed to a Docker Commerce server image. This image is then rolled out to the runtime environment. In order for any modifications to a Struts configuration file to take effect, you must deploy the changed customization asset to the Docker instance. For more information, see Deploying custom changes to a production environment.

  2. Feed formatting JSP for Atom/custom Web Services Feed

    The HCL Commerce RESTful framework uses JSP files to generate the content of an Atom or custom feed. This method is discontinued in version 9.0.1.

    Recommended action: Since the RESTful framework already supports JSON and XML format, you can use JSON and XML formatting for web services.

  3. IBM Gift Center for the Madisons starter store

    The sample add-on store archive of the IBM Gift Center for the Madisons starter store is discontinued. The store archive includes the JSP pages and server side struts actions.

    Recommended action: You can continue to use the IBM Gift Center with Madison starter store if you migrate the assets to Struts 2. For more information, see Migrating customized IBM Websphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 6 web applications to Struts 2.

Search BOD services

HCL Commerce Version 9 supports REST-based search services.

Recommended action: Review the following topics to migrate your HCL Commerce Search BOD services to REST-based services.

Site content crawler

Unstructured data from the Internet must be found and indexed separately from catalog data. In IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 8, this operation was managed by a site content crawler utility. This utility has been removed. For instructions on ingesting and indexing unstructured Internet data in HCL Commerce Version 9, refer to Tutorial: Elasticsearch file ingestion.

Utilities

IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 8 provided command-line utilities to perform administrative functions. In HCL Commerce Version 9 some utilities have been removed and others have been replaced by other functionality.

Functional area V8 utility V9 Replacement
Search configSearchReplication In HCL Commerce Version 9 all command-line search operations have been replace by RESTful APIs. For more information, see Using Apache Solr as your search solution.
setupSearchIndex
Managed files fileloader Support for managed files is removed. Use a third-party file server to manage file assets. Refer to the assets in Management Center by using the URL.
fileprop
Loading data massextract Use the Data Load utility. For more information, see Overview of the Data Load utility.
massload
Migrating from previous releases migrateListPrice Used to migrate data from Version 7 to Version 8. No replacement required.
migrateMarketing
migratePromotions
migrateSearchFacet
migrateSolrSearch Not supported in V9. Directions to migrate HCL Commerce Search are provided. For more information, see Migrating custom assets from a REST-based search deployment.
Publishing a store publishstore A Gradle script replaces the publishstore utility. For more information, see Creating your custom store in your programming environment.
Development environment resetdb This utility reset the Derby database. The Derby database is not supported in HCL Commerce Version 9. To reset the database, you can use a script, or you can create a new database.
resetstores In HCL Commerce Version 9 the Stores web module is replaced by crs-web project. To reset the stores to the default, recover the crs-web project.
restoreDefault In HCL Commerce Version 9 recover the workspace to restore it to the default settings.
Configuration Manager config_server The Configuration Manager tool has been removed. The functionality previously performed by the tool is superseded by the continuous delivery pipeline.