Fredhopper Foundational Upgrade, FHR 25.1

As previously communicated, Crownpeak is embarking on an exciting transformation aimed at fully automating Fredhopper upgrades. This initiative will significantly reduce the effort required for upgrades and enable us to deliver the latest enhancements, optimizations, and product features to our customers more swiftly.

Our upcoming FHR 25.1 release, the first major release of 2025, will introduce several exciting fixes and improvements to the Fredhopper Application Server (FAS), including all enhancements outlined in versions 24.3.0 and 25.1.0. Most importantly, this release will lay the groundwork for faster, less disruptive future upgrades, ensuring we continue to meet and exceed our customers' expectations.

 

How will FHR 25.1 be deployed?

The upcoming FHR 25.1 release includes essential product changes that will enable us to roll out upgrades to the entire Fredhopper customer base in just a few hours. To implement these upgrades effectively, we will deploy FHR 25.1 over a two-month period, from April to May 2025. The rollout will commence with all test environments, followed by production environments.

Upgrades for test environments will take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, while production environments will be upgraded only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Each customer will be assigned to a designated lettered batch, with specific dates for upgrading their test environments, followed by production environments ten business days later.

Please note that due to the Easter holiday, we will not upgrade test environments on April 18, 2025.

 

What impact can you expect from the upcoming upgrades?

 During the upgrade process, we will conduct a full reindex, which will temporarily render the Fredhopper Merchandising Studio unavailable. Additionally, there may be a slight delay in processing incremental feeds. However, rest assured that there will be no downtime or performance degradation for the Fredhopper platform during this upgrade.

Since December 2024, we have successfully conducted an extensive early adopter program to rigorously test the stability of the new version and the upgrade methodology. This thorough preparation has allowed us to classify this upgrade as extremely low risk. In the unlikely event of any critical issues arising, our team is prepared to implement a full rollback for affected customers as soon as we confirm the issue is related to the upgrade.

The enhancements introduced with FHR 25.1 will pave the way for future upgrades without the need for a reindex, thereby eliminating any downtime for the Merchandising Studio or delays in feed processing moving forward. For more information, please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions article, where we have addressed common inquiries regarding this upgrade.

 

What comes next?

Shortly, you will receive an email detailing your assigned upgrade batch, along with the scheduled dates for both the test and production environment upgrades. This email will also include useful resources, such as our Frequently Asked Questions article and our Upgrade Testing Guide, as well as instructions on how to reach out if you have any questions or need to report an issue related to the upgrade.

Rest assured, no action is required from you prior to or on the day of the upgrades. Our Support Team will proactively notify you when your upgrade is about to commence, and they will keep you updated until the process is complete.

After the upgrade, we encourage you to follow the six-step testing process outlined in the Upgrade Testing Guide to ensure everything is functioning smoothly.

To provide all our customers with the latest enhancements and optimizations, and to position ourselves for a seamless Peak in 2025, we are pursuing a tight timeline for the FHR 25.1 Upgrade. Therefore, we are unable to offer alternative upgrade dates.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we embark on this exciting initiative. Thank you!