Announcing the Commerce Server Spring Updates
We are very pleased to announce our Spring 2013 updates from commerceserver.net and deliver upon all of the 1st Half 2013 roadmap commitments previously announced!
Commerce Server 10.1
A maintenance release of Commerce Server 10 is now available, adding SharePoint 2013 support, BizTalk 2013 support, bug fixes since Commerce Server 10, and customer-driven enhancements to import/export of catalog properties and enhanced sequencing options when working with virtual catalogs. This is a no-breaking change in-place upgrade. The support lifecycle for Commerce Server 10 and 10.1 remains the same.
Commerce Server 2009 R2 Service Pack 1
Commerce Server 2009 R2 has been updated to now support Windows 8 client, Windows Server 2012, .NET Framework 4.5, and BizTalk Server 2013 – along with a roll-up of all fixes since Commerce Server 2009 R2. This release is available from Microsoft.com for customers who acquired their licenses from Microsoft and from commerceserver.net for customers who acquired their licenses from us.
We have also made an exception to our normal policy and specifically extended the support lifecycle for Ascentium Commerce Server 2009 R2 with Service Pack 1 exclusively for commerceserver.net customers, as it is the last release of Commerce Server without in-place upgrades. The new dates are May 1, 2016 for Mainstream Support, July 1, 2019 for Extended Support, and May 1, 2023 for Online Support. We have done this as we realize that many customers have substantial investments in existing codebases from Commerce Server 2007 and above – and we want to offer a friction-free mechanism to remain supported without incurring the breaking changes introduced in Commerce Server 10.
Support for the Cloud
Beginning with Commerce Server 10.1, we now officially support Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services as operating environments. You can deploy in Azure on Medium, Large, Extra Large, A6, and A7 instances running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. Likewise, you can also deploy on Amazon Web Services using M1 Medium and Large as well as M3 Extra Large and Double Extra Large Instances running either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. Each provisioned instance requires an existing per server license.
We found that performance in the cloud can be easily configured to meet or exceed on-premise performance – meaning that customers can confidently deploy in the cloud today. We will be publishing detailed findings and guidance in the very near future.
And, we have another, unannounced-in-our-roadmap cloud-based surprise coming soon as well. Stay tuned. J
Getting the Bits (and Help)
As previously announced, we have debuted our new Community Portal at https://community.commerceserver.net/ and Support Portal at https://support.comerceserver.net/.
Both CS10.1 and CS2009 R2 SP1 are available immediately from https://support.commerceserver.net/ to contracted license-holders and partners.
Register today and you’ll be granted access within one business day. And, over the next week we will be communicating directly to all customers and partners to confirm sign-up and transition all other support communication mechanisms over to the new portal. At this time, we will be retiring the mechanism to open support cases via e-mail.
Service Provider Licensing
Many hosting providers and managed solution providers offered Microsoft Commerce Server through a program known as Service Provider License Agreement or SPLA. We are pleased to debut at this time a new program from commerceserver.net offering these providers a dedicated license offering with flexible monthly, 1-year, and 3-year terms; per server or per processor socket licensing; and grandfathering (with proof) for existing Microsoft SPLA licensers. Please contact us for specific details.
An Even Clearer Road Ahead
The team has now shifted gears on our major release, targeted for the end-of-year, and focused on revamping the business user experience for Commerce Server as previewed in a prior posting. In accordance with our roadmap disclosure policy, we have provided a comprehensive refresh of our product roadmap. Please download it today at https://www.commerceserver.net/roadmap/. In this refresh, you’ll find significantly greater precision on our 2013 and 2014 plans, a preview of our 2015 release (which was previously unannounced), and a preview of our upcoming 3rd party CXM integration offerings (also previously unannounced).
With today’s announcements, we’re now up to 5 Commerce Server releases in the last 12 months. J We are extremely excited to continue our extremely rapid pace of innovation to evolve Commerce Server into a best-in-class commerce platform for the Microsoft .NET ecosystem and hope you are as well.