We are pleased to announce the release of SaaSGrid 1.8.1! Our testing sandbox located at http://saasgridpreview.com has been updated to this version. SaaSGrid licensees are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible and can contact SaaSGrid Support for the new distribution.

Major Features

As this is a minor release, no major features have been introduced.

Minor Features

We continually strive to improve the SaaSGrid development and usage experience, and have made numerous minor changes to the platform based mostly on the feedback of our customers. This release of SaaSGrid introduces the following minor changes:

  • The Deployer now validates for missing configuration token replacement, preventing the possible deployment of services with an incomplete configuration definition.
  • The Service Container now better releases unused ports upon shutdown to avoid port locking problems.
  • Introduced general usability, browser support, and formatting enhancements to the Provider and Tenant Portals and SaaSGrid Operations Console.

Bug Fix Highlights

The following is a list of selected bugs that are fixed in this particular release of SaaSGrid. 

  • Promotion of an archive with no user interface is now permitted (an empty folder was previously required for applications with no user interface).
  • Log messages from the Router did not include the version ID, prohibiting them from being filtered correctly.
  • Packaging error prohibiting SaaSGrid Settings page from loading was resolved.
  • Packaging error prohibiting NHibernate 2.x based applications from deploying correctly was resolved.
  • Add Plan and Add Section buttons on Pricebook page now correctly show images.
  • Cookie parsing problem when Silverlight application was loaded after logging in or resetting password has been resolved.
  • Invoice listing shows customer name for invoices generated by subscription renewals (note that this is a display issue only).
  • The Patch Builder is now disabled for versions of applications in Test or Production stage.
  • Errors originating from a User Interface now consistently include Session, Tenant, and User ID.
  • Promotion from Test to Production left behind old service instances in certain situations.
  • Rollback operations for a failed promotion from Test to Production have been improved.
  • It is now no longer possible to impersonate context for Sessions instantiated via the Remote API.
  • SaaSGrid consistently returns 200 HTTP status code for all Silverlight client requests that generate service fault exceptions.

Future Releases

Minor releases will continue for SaaSGrid 1.8 every 4 to 6 weeks. The next major release of SaaSGrid is expected in mid-May 2010. The following major features can be expected:

  • Improvements to Manual Invoicing: applications using manual invoicing will no longer have their subscriptions managed by SaaSGrid as the workflow pertaining to this is quite limited. SaaSGrid will feature improved subscription management capability for providers to address many limitations in this issue.
  • Improved Installation Mechanism and Tools: a new SaaSGrid installer will help provision and configure new SaaSGrid installations. Additionally, a new tool to assist in packaging application archives will be introduced.
  • Relaxed Application Definition Rules: SaaSGrid licensees can now use SaaSGrid to deploy applications containing any configuration of user interfaces, services, and databases. 
  • Patching System Enhancements: Many improvements to the SaaSGrid patching system are forthcoming including: population of test data for patched application versions, the ability to add and delete application components, and the ability to upload an archive to define a patch.
  • SQL Server 2008 Type Support: All native 2008 features of SQL Server will be supported. Note it is currently possible to use SQL Server 2008, but not specific types introduced by it (e.g. geospatial).
  • SaaSGrid Operation Center Enhancements: Additional administrative capability will be made available.

Also expect in the forthcoming months documentation improvements and an announcement regarding .NET 4.0 Support.

Please contact your Customer Champion or Account Representative with feedback about what features you would like to see in a future release of SaaSGrid.