FHR: Attraqt Peak Preparations: Everything you need to know

With the peak shopping season fast approaching, we're pleased to share the work we have been doing on our operational processes to ensure your peak trade period runs as smoothly as possible.

• Infrastructure improvements
• Monitoring improvements
• Change freeze dates
• Load testing 
• Scaling predictions
• Attraqt team support and availability

Infrastructure improvements

Attraqt is in the process of upgrading the Fredhopper infrastructure to further increase the performance and stability of the cloud environments by enhancing the Load Balancing layers.

The changes will be rolled out gradually on all the cloud regions throughout the month of October, i.e. between 1st and 31st October. 

No action is required from our customers as the changes will not affect the integration with the Fredhopper Discovery platform.

No interruptions in the Query and Data API services are expected as a result of this change. In case you encounter any issues during this period with the services stated above, please log a ticket with us.

Make sure to follow this article for any updates.

 

Monitoring improvements

• Improved internal monitoring tools with additional options for Cloud performance visibility. 
• Enhanced error rate monitoring over production environments.

 

Change freezes

'Change freeze' is short for 'change freeze period' - a time during which any changes to the production environments are prohibited.

These periods are needed during peak trading events like Black Friday and Christmas to allow our teams to ensure optimal services at times when retailers need these the most.

For peak 2021, change freezes will occur on the following dates:

• Black Friday freeze: 1st November 2021 - 6th December 2021
• Christmas freeze: 13th December 2021 - 10th January 2022

Change freeze refers to changes over:

• Upgrades or downgrades to any versions of running services.
• Load test customisations and support.
• New feature deployments.

It is good practice to avoid making major changes to the Merchandising Studio during high traffic season.

 

Load testing

This year we are offering a dedicated load test environment. Please note that we ask for at least two weeks notice before we can cater for any load testing requests. Please get in touch with us via the support team. The last date to request load testing is October 8^th, so please send in your requests by then.

 

Scaling predictions

As with any year, we want our systems to cater to the increased peak season traffic, which means increasing the scaling of the infrastructure. If you believe you will have specific scaling requirements, please submit an additional capacity request to discuss your particular requirements. Send in your requests by October 8^th.

 

We are with you every step of the way

We want to make sure we are prepared for any unexpected incidents over Peak and have worked hard to further enhance and boost our team resources and systems over the entire peak trade period.

Our Customer Support team will continue to provide 24/7 support, with additional technical resources allocated to ensure uninterrupted coverage throughout.

 

If you have any questions, reach out to Support through a support ticket. We look forward to a successful peak season with you!