As announced by SDL earlier this week – it’s here!
Just in case you’re week’s still too busy to read the full-monty here’s a few snippet to highlight the main ‘changes introduced’ in this new framework:
- The new Model Service is a fundamental change/microservice that that runs on the CD environment (dependencies being the[SDL Web] Content Service or the [SDL Web] Session-Enabled Content Service)
- The new Data Model replaces DD4T. This includes
- a much cleaner data model
- New TBBs (for JSON creation)
- Easier mapping to [DXA] view models
- Easier extension of the data model (CMS and CD)
- DD4T CompatabilityÂ
- Data Model
- There is a model service converter that can convert content to the format requested by the web app (it’s still recommended to publish to the new R2 format as soon as possible
- There’s a DD4T Model Service Provider that will make the DD4T app behave the same as DXA apps and stop using the direct database requests in favour of the DXA Model Service
- Template Compatability
- With new extension points and “easier templating” migration efforts should be minimised
- OAuth
- OAuth supported for the Model Service
- Enabled (and recommended) OOTB
- DXA Resolver
- This will ensure that linked DCPs are also republished. The recursion depth is configurable.
- Enhancements to Caching (Java)
- The DXA web app utilises the same cache configs as the CIL and is managed in the same manner (it does only support Ehcache).
- Model Service caching added, using the same caching framework as the Java web app
- Rendered view caching – enabled by default
- Ability to disable caching for individual view models at run-time
- Updated version of CIL
- Further enhancement to the SDL Web 8.5 CIL (hot fixed) include
- Config property to support the implementation of a custom OAuth Token Provider
- Multi-level caching (for .Net)
It’s also worth noting the compatibility breaks – so we can assess if we’re relying on functionality now (against, say 2013) that will not be there when we should/need to upgrade:
More information on the upgrade changes:
Let me know if you’d like to discuss any of the points/impacts.