Atlas 4.0 - Technical Highlights

 

Atlas 4.0 enhances the way people can consume knowledge and collaboration in a digital workspace.

Atlas version 4.0 is a major upgrade! This is an exciting prospect because as well as a large bundle of useful new functionality and features (see the Atlas 4.0 functional highlights here and our Atlas Townhall) and a new deployment process (Atlas 4.0 - Upgrade Process & Supporting Information), 4.0 will contain critical infrastructural and frame-work based improvements. You can read on within this article for more information

Article Contents

• Atlas 4.0 enhances and improves the Azure Infrastructure and upgrades .Net Frameworks
• .Net 6 Framework upgrade
• Additional scalable App registration architecture
• Self- serviced deployment model

Atlas 4.0 enhances and improves the Azure Infrastructure and upgrades .Net Frameworks

Major upgrades take place once a year and are important to update the back-end of the Micorosft Azure functions and frameworks Atlas relies on that we have to take into account to ensure not only a continually improved experience and a more resilient back-end infrastructure within M365, but to ensure we move forward with the framework changes made by Microsoft. There are many reasons for this, from; improved security and updating soon to be outdated or unsupported technologies, etc.

Specifically, these include:

• .Net 6 Framework upgrade
• Scalable App registration architecture
• Self- serviced deployment model

.Net 6 Framework upgrade

Atlas backend infrastructure uses the .NET framework and C# code. We have moved to .NET 6 from .NET 3.1 to ensure that the latest security standards and support is applied from the core of Atlas. .Net 6 will also increase performance on complex processing operations (e.g., ConneX Workspaces synchronization or provisioning).

Microsoft has also advised that .NET 3.1 has an end of support date of 3rd December 2022. More information on this can be found here Extended support for Microsoft .NET Core 3.1 will end on 3 December 2022 | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Also, this blog from our Head of Success, Patrick Proesmans is an interesting read for ATLAS clients specifically: End of LTS for .Net Core 3.1- what does this mean for Atlas clients?

So as well as improvements, this is a strategic must to ensure Atlas stays well aligned to changes within Microsoft tech.

Additional scalable App registration architecture

Atlas interacts with your Microsoft 365 data through Azure Active Directory App registrations.

We are increasing the number of apps and re-registering them for a much better scalability through an improved SharePoint/Graph API throttling management* splitting workloads (Sync, Provisioning…) across different apps. 

What does this mean to you?

• More reliable and faster synchronization and provisioning of workspaces.
• Grants permissions again to Atlas apps through the deployment process. More information on permissions can be found in this Knowledge article in Zendesk (requires a Zendesk user as this is security sensitive information). ARTICLE LINK HERE

* More information on throttling management best practices can be found here Avoid getting throttled or blocked in SharePoint Online | Microsoft Docs

**There will be no additional cost associated to this change

Self- serviced deployment model

Our Atlas product vision is all about empowerment and self-service. In line with this commitment, we have built a safer, faster and more self-service approach to deploy and update Atlas. As part of this, we are introducing self-service deployment for Atlas 4.0.

The benefits of this are:

• ClearPeople deployment servers will no longer be required to access your infrastructure, which lowers the attach surface of your infrastructure.
• Atlas updates can be deployed in a timeframe suitable to you, ensuring more control and minimal impact to your users, especially during working hours.
• The same level of technical support will continue.

How will it work?

• Your IT administrator will need to complete a Microsoft form
  • This form gathers all the key parameters that will used
• IT administrator will receive PowerShell scripts containing the latest release of Atlas
  • The script uses the key parameters held in the Microsoft form
• Once the form is completed, we will provided the scripts and a CSV file containing the key parameters. A step-by-step guide on how to run the Atlas updates for your tenant will be provided
• A technical contact will be provided to assist the entire process if required.

The deployment will require a user with high privileges in your tenant (Global Administrator for some of the steps like granting permissions to the App registrations) to run at least part of the scripts provided.