FAS 21.2 Upgrade Notes

FAS 21.2 is compatible with the previous release.

Changes in the query language

In 21.2, we add two additional parameters that would help reduce response size. They are extensions to the fh_suppress parameter capability.

New configuration REST APIs

Publication API

The Publication API enhances the existing Configuration API used to create and manage business rules.
This API has been extended to include publication capabilities, so the Configuration API now covers the entire lifecycle of a rule, allowing for powerful automation.

FAS 21.2 adds the ability to create publication sets via REST API.

Service for managing published rules

Service for managing published rules

Multi-Site API

The new Multi-Site API alleviates some of the pain points currently faced when configuring multi-site strategies.
The API will be able to retrieve current multi-site configurations, perform CRUD operations on existing strategies and automatically reload the configuration. This reduces the manual effort required when making configuration changes and the risk of error as some actions can be automated. It allows easier access to multi-site files, making the integration process easier, removes the requirement
of reindexing and reduces the onboarding time for partners.

API usage:

Changes in default system settings (system.xml)

FHR Tracking

FAS 21.2 allow tracking of events in the Merchandising Studio. It is planned for future versions of this configuration to be rolled out automatically and not need a change in the system configuration.
For now, the node /com/fredhopper/bm/analytics should be added to system.xml to enable the feature:

<node name="com">
    <map />
    <node name="fredhopper">
    <map />
        <node name="bm">
        <map />
            <node name="analytics">
            <map>
                <!-- If analytics should be enabled. True or False, default value is false -->
                <entry key="analytics-enabled" value="true" />
                <!-- API Key of the Amplitude project in which events will be sent -->
                <entry key="amplitude-api-key" value="da44ccd9c06d7c20771ca6dcecfd37a6" />
                <!-- The id of the container created in Google Tag Manager -->
                <entry key="gtm-container-id" value="GTM-WPG45XP" />
           </map>
           </node>
     </node>
</node>

As of FAS 21.2.1, the above values can be read from the environment (passed by the controller).

• AMPLITUDE_API_KEY: One for Amplitude API key
• GTM_CONTAINER_ID: One for GTM container ID

Caching of expensive float computations

In FAS 21.2.4, you can modify the size of the FloatUtils cache - this can decrease indexing time for large repetitive datasets. For example, repetitive in with multiple similar variants data.

It should be used with caution, though the evaluation should be done for the respective dataset before usage in production. Default values are respectively 0 and 0, so the cache is not used by default.

<node name="com">
    <map />
    <node name="fredhopper">
    <map />
        <node name="util">
        <map />
            <node name="FloatUtils">
            <map>
                <!-- Caches to use for converting scaled/unscaled values. This may help some customers, but it
                     showed performance degradation so it's turned off by default (set to 0).
                     The previous values used that you can try, are scaled: 500000, unscaled: 50000.
                -->
                <entry key="scaled-cache-size" value="500000"/>
                <entry key="unscaled-cache-size" value="50000"/>
            </map>
            </node>
     </node>
</node>

Memory usage reduction via value deduplication

Depending on the dataset, the data structure that stores localised attribute values (aka multi-language values), contains duplicate strings. These duplicates are attribute values that are equal across different locales for the same attribute.

AS of FAS 21.2.4, those strings can be deduplicated by using the same instance (that is, by interning strings).

The deduplication optimisation can be disabled by a feature flag, as it could slightly increase memory usage in some specific datasets.

<node name="com">
    <map />
    <node name="fredhopper">
    <map />
        <node name="attribute">
        <map />
            <node name="AttributeType">
	    <map>
                <entry key="use-value-deduplication" value="true" />
	   </map>
           </node>
     </node>
</node>

The default value is true.

Changes in the folder structure

Custom dictionary files

Moved out dictionaries/override and dictionaries/extra folder out from /etc to /config folder so that decomposition dictionaries could be added easier to FAS. The semantics of these folders are:

• dictionaries/override - if dictionary files are available here, this folder will be used to read dictionaries instead of what is located under /etc/dictionaries/default (this is shipped by default from FAS). So the purpose of this folder is to override any default dictionaries provided by FAS.
• dictionaries/extra - this folder is always consulted, so any additional dictionaries should be put here.
  For the changes to take effect 'Linguistic analyzers' page under the System tab needs to be re-saved (this will reload the respective business.xml configuration).

As of FAS 21.2.5, the above structure is also part of the versioning mechanism of FAS. Dictionaries can be added through the controller's unpublished-indexer-config folder for the customer's environment, keeping the same structure:
- unpublished-indexer-config/dictionaries/extra
- unpublished-indexer-config/dictionaries/override

After reindex, dictionaries are propagated to the indexer node. From there, they can be published to the live nodes.

Note: To take effect, the dictionaries MUST be part of the indexing process, hence should be present on the indexer while indexing.
Otherwise, just added to the pipeline afterwards, they will not take full effect (will not augment the search index as expected).

Migration

Migrating from FAS 21.1 to 21.2 requires no specific steps.