We are pleased to announce the next alpha release of Camunda Platform Runtime 7.16. This release features the following improvements:
- Support for Spring Boot 2.5
- [REST API] Set activation time for process definitions during deployment
- Support for Java 15 and GraalVM JavaScript
- Pass on JVM arguments to Camunda Run
- 5 Bug Fixes
You can Download Camunda for free or Run it with Docker.
For a complete list of all improvements, take a look at the release notes. Please also see the list of known issues.
If you want to dig in deeper, you can find the source code on GitHub.
Added support for Spring Boot 2.5
This release will bring Spring Boot 2.5 to the Camunda Spring Boot Starter and Camunda Platform Run. If you are interested in what’s new with Spring Boot 2.5, you can check out the official release notes and the announcement blog post.
[REST API] Set activation time for process definitions during deployment
Sometimes, the process definitions that are deployed should not be activated right away. So far, only the Java API has offered the option to set the activation time of process definitions during deployment. Now, it’s possible to pass an activation time for process definitions during deployment via a REST API. To read more about it, check the Create deployment endpoint in the REST API reference. This functionality is also available via OpenAPI Documentation.
Added support for Java 15 and GraalVM JavaScript
Java 15, besides adding new features, removes the Nashorn JavaScript Engine from the JVM. So, if you are relying on JavaScript in your process models, and want to upgrade your Java version, the time might have come to move on. However, in case you are not using any JavaScript in your models, running Camunda on Java 15 works out of the box.
Assuming you are using JavaScript in your process models, there are multiple options if you want to update to Java 15. Depending on the complexity of the JavaScript code in your models, you can replace them either with another scripting language like Groovy, by using External Tasks and a JavaScript-based External Task Client, or by using Java Delegates instead.
However, we are aware that this might not be suitable for everyone and you might want to keep your JavaScript code right where it is. Therefore, Camunda now offers GraalVM JavaScript (GraalJS) as a drop-in replacement for Nashorn. In fact, we now include GraalJS in our pre-packaged distros and Camunda Platform Run regardless of the JVM you are using to run them. We apply sensible default configurations to the GraalJS engine before executing statements. We also preferably execute JavaScript code on GraalJS if it’s available on the classpath of your application. Check out our migration guide for more details in case you are already running a version of Camunda Platform.
That being said, GraalJS might not be suitable for everyone immediately. There are known incompatibilities with Nashorn, so be aware that issues might arise when migrating. In case you don’t want to use the new script engine and you are not running on Java 15 or later yet, you can always go back to Nashorn by adjusting the process engine configuration accordingly. Furthermore, GraalJS offers a lot of configuration options to adjust the script execution behavior to your needs. Our script engine configuration guide shows you how to apply configurations to your script engines.
Pass on JVM arguments to Camunda Run
From defining proxy settings to adjusting a script engine’s configuration, the number of use cases for providing JVM arguments to a Java application is nearly uncountable. Up until now, Camunda Platform Run required you to adjust the contained start scripts in case you wanted to provide additional JVM arguments on application startup.
With this release, Camunda Run will pick up all additional JVM arguments provided with the JAVA_OPTS environment variable. You can set this environment variable before executing Camunda Run’s start script and the defined properties will be picked up and passed on to the Java application. No fiddling around with bash scripts or batch files anymore.
Share your thoughts with us!
Your feedback is really important to us, so please download Camunda Platform Runtime 7.16.0-alpha3, try it out, and let us know what you think about it.
You can contact us in the forum, send a tweet to @Camunda, or file a bug in our ticket system.
