Information for: DEVELOPERS   PARTNERS

Looking for something?

Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta

Acquia Cloud Next is the next major upgrade to Acquia’s Cloud Platform, and it is scheduled for release in 2021. During the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta, a Trial Services Program, participating subscribers are granted temporary access to feature-limited sandbox environments which can be used for functional and performance testing.

Note

Cloud Platform subscribers interested in testing the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta release should contact their Account Manager for more information.

The Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta program is not available to Cloud Platform Professional or Site Factory subscribers.

Key differences

Acquia Cloud Next technologies provide even better performance, scalability, and resiliency during periods of high load. Powered by an even more advanced server less architecture than the current version of the Acquia Cloud Platform, Acquia Cloud Next ensures applications can scale even faster to satisfy the demands of high traffic events and resource intensive processes.

Resource Isolation

Acquia Cloud Next leverages containerization to provide superior performance and resiliency to Drupal applications and related services. As a result, services previously available on the same dedicated infrastructure have been re-architected to operate more efficiently in isolation, even on non-production environments.

On Acquia Cloud Next, containers have been dedicated to each of the following system processes:

  • Drupal, Apache, PHP
  • SSH Sessions
  • Cron Jobs
  • Memcached (Not yet available on Private Beta environments)

This level of resource isolation ensures the key services associated with delivering your Drupal application are able to utilize the cloud capacity they require without adversely impacting each other, even during periods of increased activity.

Changes to Cloud Platform Features

As a result of the newer technologies in use on Acquia Cloud Next, some Cloud Platform features will behave differently once an environment has been upgraded, including:

  • Servers Page: This page will be removed from the Acquia Cloud Platform user interface.
  • Stack Metrics: Cloud Platform load balancer metrics will still be displayed, and new graphs measuring Cloud Capacity Unit utilization over time have been added; CPU graphs will show lower utilization on Acquia Cloud Next whenever a site is experiencing no or minimal load.
  • SSH: Some system commands available on the current version of the Acquia Cloud Platform may not be available when using SSH to access an Acquia Cloud Next environment; home directories are now ephemeral and will not persist.
    • The /mnt/gfs directory is no longer available for direct file system access.
    • The /var/log/sites directory is no longer available for direct log access or temporary log storage; historical logs for each environment will become available in the Cloud Platform UI and Cloud Platform API v2 in a later Beta release.
  • Slow Queries: Long-running MySQL queries will now be terminated after running for 60 seconds.
  • Cron: Long-running cron jobs can no longer be terminated manually through SSH sessions.

Acquia Cloud Next Limitations

Acquia Cloud Next is currently optimized for Drupal 8 applications. Drupal 7 applications are not currently supported, and Drupal 9 applications may not behave as expected at this time.

Software compatibility with Acquia Cloud

The Private Beta version of Acquia Cloud Next may not yet include all PHP libraries, SSH commands, and other expected software or customizations. Throughout the Private Beta Program, we will continue to add known missing features to maximize the compatibility of existing applications with Acquia Cloud Next. If a site running on your Private Beta environment is not functioning properly as the result of a missing dependency, note this in your communications with the administrators of the Private Beta Program.

Temporarily unavailable features

The following Cloud Platform UI and Cloud Platform API v2 features are not supported on the current version of Acquia Cloud Next:

The following Cloud Platform SSH and Cloud Hook features are not supported, or may behave differently, on the current version of Acquia Cloud Next:

  • Drush - Self drush aliases are not currently supported.

The following Cloud Platform features are not supported on the current version of the Acquia Cloud Next:

The following Acquia products and services are not compatible with the current version of Acquia Cloud Next:

Further, Acquia Cloud Next Beta environments should not be used for live sites or normal development workflows.

Important

While the Acquia Cloud Next platform has been designed with security and compliance in mind, the Private Beta Version has not yet completed full security and compliance reviews and therefore should not be used with any sensitive data until launch.

Other known issues

This section will be updated throughout the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta Program with any new issues identified during testing.

  • CDN Incompatibility: Acquia Cloud Next does not currently support reverse proxies, which may be required for CDNs to integrate with an Acquia Cloud Next environment.

Troubleshooting

In the event that any unexpected product issues or problems with your Private Beta site are discovered during the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta Program, file a medium-urgency ticket with Acquia Support using the product Acquia Beta Programs in the ticket creation form. The issue will be reviewed as quickly as possible during regular business hours, and normal contractual response time SLAs will not apply.

All non-diagnostic feedback and communications related to Acquia Cloud Next, however, should remain in the primary ticket associated with the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta Program.

Cloning an existing application to an Acquia Cloud Next Sandbox Applications

For participants in the Acquia Cloud Next Private Beta Program who are being provided with blank sandbox applications, additional steps may be required to test your existing application on Acquia Cloud Next.

While this documentation can be used to import an existing application onto your new Acquia Cloud Next sandbox environments, the following alternative steps-by-step instructions may be used as an alternative method:

  1. Verify that you have access to the newly provisioned NEXT application in the Acquia Cloud Platform user interface. If you are a Team Lead or Administrator, you may need to explicitly assign yourself, your developers, or this new application to the right Team before it will appear for everyone.
  2. Pull the git repository for the current application you will use for testing down locally. Determine which branch or tag you want to use as the new baseline for testing on Acquia Cloud Next.
  3. Using a non-production environment on your current application, remove any sensitive data such as user email addresses or private files using an automated scrub script, if available. This will ensure no sensitive data is transferred to the Private Beta version of Acquia Cloud Next.
  4. Trigger an on-demand database backup on that environment and download it locally.
  5. SSH on to that environment and copy the file directory down to your local environment.
  6. Access your NEXT application and pull your new Git repository down locally. Paste the desired code from your existing application into the new Git repository, commit the changes, and push them back to origin. Then use the Cloud UI or Cloud API v2 to ensure your desired branch is deployed on one of the NEXT application’s non-production environments.
  7. Download drush aliases locally and use drush to restore your site’s database from the database dump file you previously created.
  8. While still logged onto that environment, transfer your site’s files to the new environment’s file system.
  9. Test and verify the site.

It is important to remember that many applications will not behave as expected when first cloned to a new application in this fashion as changes to your application’s code may be required to work with the new codebase or environment. Further, some sites will only operate properly when a custom domain is assigned to the new environment and configured correctly both with your DNS provider and within the site’s code or settings.

Change Log

All significant changes to Acquia Cloud Next during the Private Beta period will be listed in this section:

  • No significant changes have been released to Acquia Cloud Next since the start of the Private Beta Program.

53 State Street, 10th Floor
Boston, MA 02109
United States
Phone: 888-922-7842