15.5 Builds upon the 15.1 branch and includes many improvements, fixes, and new features. If you are upgrading from a pre-15.1 environment, please have a look at the changes made in 15.1.
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There are also many improvements which will also benefit smaller Connexion/Integrator deployments. As always, we welcome your feedback on these features and updates.
New: Connexion & Gateway API
We have built a preliminary API for both Connexion and Gateway environments. Currently, these APIs are geared towards the querying and creation of the main components of each environment (Groups, Tabs, Channels, Devices, Remote Agents). We will be evolving these APIs based on feedback.
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Connexion.Api.Orchestration.dll - Helpers for common tasks on both platforms, as well as the ability to create routes between Connexion and Remote Agents.
New: Batch Processing
The default queue modes process messages one-at-a-time and in the order of receipt. In 15.0, the ‘Multi-threaded’ mode was added to allow parallel processing of messages. This mode exposed the ability to group message pulled from the queue and then process those groups of messages in parallel. For example, X HL7v2 messages could be pulled from the queue, grouped by patient, and then those groups processed in parallel.
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Batch processing uses a new interface and function to allow the processing of a batch of messages. A collection of messages is passed to the device, and the implementer can decide on how best to deal with them. In some cases you may want to pass the entire collection of messages in a single call (for example, a web service that takes an array of messages), or, you may want to process the messages individually in parallel.
Please note that batch mode (threading / asynchronous programming) is an advanced feature that requires care! Read more about batch processing.
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ExampleA device which has support for Batch processing is the Remote Agent Sender device. This device brokers messages between Connexion and Remote Agents. Initial implementations of this device sent one message-at-a-time and therefore had a maximum processing speed capped by the latency of the connection. Even on fast connections, this capped throughput at around 40 messages per second. To overcome this limit, a custom batching mechanism was implemented which cached the messages into a local file and then periodically sent that batch of messages. This resulted in a 10x throughput improvement but required a fairly complex caching mechanism. When operating in batch mode, this device receives a collection of messages off the queue and can instantly send this batch without any custom caching mechanism. This mode is slightly faster (than custom caching) with much lower complexity and latency. |
New: Message Tracing
In large/complex deployments of Connexion (often including Remote Agents), it can be challenging to determine the path a message followed from origin to destination. ‘Message Tracing’ has been added to 15.5 to simplify this task.
Changed: Gateway User Interface Hierarchy
todoRemote agents are now hosting many more channels and performing more functions that the original UI was designed for. This has surfaced some manageability and performance issues we have decided to change the object hierarchy from Group > Tab > Remote Agent > Channel (15.1) to Group > Remote Agent > Tab > Channel (15.5). This hierarchy provides a more manageable and performant experience for remote agents with many channels, although it does take some getting-used-to.
Changed: Bandwidth Usage Improvements
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New: Gateway Map Dashboard
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Updated: User Dashboard
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Updated: Integrator Push Updates
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New: Centralized Server Connections
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New: Delay Queuing
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New: Release Message(s) For Processing
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New: Kafka Reader/Writer Devices
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New: Globals bulk import/export
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New: Gateway Nightly Backup
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New: Enterprise Dashboard & Reporting
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Updated: Connexion Plugin UI
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Updated: Queue Query Timezone Logic
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New: Remote Agent MongoDb Error State
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New:Channel Settings Device & Message Verification
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New: Remote Agent Decommissioning
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Updated: Alert/Event Purging
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Updated: Database Polling Device Set Seed
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Updated: Queue Device ‘Copy to Queue’
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