Our Roadmap

Our monthly update day is coming up. On this day, scheduled updates for the operating system and the software used are applied. An overview of the scheduled software updates can be viewed for each cluster in the Application Center.

In addition to the cluster view, a customer view is now also available in our overview in the Application Centre. You can easily switch between the two views via a menu tab.

New settings for the user interface are now available in the Application Centre. A dark mode can be activated via the menu and you can switch between the full and reduced width of the page.

Supervisor is now also available in Cluster Control. Supervisor, supervisor programs and groups can be controlled via the commands.

Advanced settings for DKIM are now available in the Managed Center under the menu item E-Mail. DKIM can be set up for both the email server and the cluster, thus improving the deliverability of emails and protection against identity theft.

PHP 8.3 is available for installation in the Managed Center and offers better performance, syntax and type safety. In addition, any available PHP versions can be installed or uninstalled under Apache and NGINX via a new option.

The new design in the Application Centre is now set as the default, i.e. the standard layout after login. The new functions "simplified switching between clusters" and "setting menu items as favourites" are also available.

For VarnishSSL, it is now possible to play out assets directly instead of tunneling them via Varnish. Adjustments can be made for the selected domain via the Varnish SSL settings, thereby reducing loading times.

New commands for the Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, PHP, Redis, Solr and Varnish features have been published via Cluster Control. In addition, the Node.js feature including commands is now available via Cluster Control.

Solr 8.11.2 is available on all clusters with Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04.
In the Managed Center, version 8.11.2 is now automatically installed when Solr version 8.11 is selected.

With our new user interface in the Application Center, we offer you a better overview and more user-friendliness. In addition to the visual redesign, you will find new features such as favourites and filter options. The speed is also significantly increased by the modern Java script framework Vue.js.

The reload function for Apache and NGINX already available in the Managed Center is now also available in our CLI tool Cluster Control.

Varnish is available in version 7.4 for customers with Ubuntu 22.04 and newer in the Application Centre. For more information about Varnish, please read our blog post.

Varnish is available in version 7.3 in the Application Center for customers running Ubuntu 20.04 and newer. For more information regarding Varnish, feel free to read our blog post.

With our new reload function, you can reload Apache and NGINX quickly and easily. You can do this with one click via a button in the Managed Center.

In the "package updates" view within the Managed Center, you will now find all software package updates along with their complete version information.

For highest reliability and performance, we now offer you an optimized server environment for Pimcore applications.

Information about our Pimcore hosting can be found on our website. We have summarized FAQ around the topic in our knowledge base.

The latest version, 2.6, of OpenSearch is now available in the Managed Center.

The Managed Center now allows you to access user-based FTP logs, giving you more control and insights into the activities. Benefit from increased transparency and security for your cluster with this new feature.

For improved performance and configuration options, our Managed Center now offers enhanced features for individual OPCache configuration.

These include opcache.max_accelerated_files, opcache.interned_strings_buffer, opcache.revalidate_freq, and opcache.memory_consumption.

Benefit from optimized PHP script processing and increased performance.

Starting in February, you can activate PHP 8.2 in the Managed Center on all Ubuntu clusters. New features in PHP 8.2 include read-only classes, an interface for generating random numbers, three standalone types, and the linking of intersection and union types. For a detailed overview of the new features and deprecations in PHP 8.2, see the announcement on php.net and the documentation there.

From the beginning of February we host the Magento 2 fork Mage-OS. Also our command line tools like mc-software are already compatible for Mage-OS; same goes for ShopPerformance and ShopSecurity. For questions about Mage-OS, feel free to visit the official website.

From the beginning of March, we offer hosting for Magento 2 stores that use the Hyvä theme. Hyvä can be used to build particularly fast frontends. More about this at https://hyva.io/.

Varnish is available in version 7.1 and 7.2 in the Application Center for customers running Ubuntu 18.04 and newer. For more information regarding Varnish, feel free to read our blog post.

In our Application Center, the common LTS versions are now preinstalled on Ubuntu clusters and can be managed there. Upgrading or downgrading a Node.js version is also possible there.

The Manager Center also shows you the process overview of all running Node.js.

On April 21 of this year, the latest LTS version of Ubuntu was released. We have optimized our e-commerce stack for Ubuntu 22.04 and adapted our Application Center to provide clusters with the new operating system.

All Redis 6 and 7 minor versions are supported in the Application Center.

Varnish is available in version 7.0 in the Application Center for customers running Ubuntu 18.04 and newer. For more information regarding Varnish, feel free to read our blog post.

We host the Community Edition of Akeneo in versions 4, 5 and 6. If you have any questions about this topic, please read our FAQ post.

With our new partner portal, you have an overview of your partner status, commissions and customers at all times. In addition, your partner agreements as well as marketing and sales materials are available for download there.

With ShopPerformance you have the One-Click ability to check your online shop. If there are still some opportunities to speed it up, we give you some advice to do it quick by yourself. You will find the new feature in your Application Center from July 4th, 2022.

The Managed Center, which is part of the Application Center, has been set up specifically to support our English-speaking customers. Please note that so far only the most important services we offer have been translated.

The latest version, 1.3, of OpenSearch is now available in the Managed Center.

With OpenSearch 1.2, another open-source search and analysis suite will be available in our Managed Center from March 8th, 2022. This is compatible with the new Magento version 2.4.4, among others. Please see our FAQ page for more information.

We now support four more major versions of Elasticsearch in our Managed Center to guarantee you the highest possible compatibility with your e-commerce software versions. Versions 2,5,6 and 7 are now available for selection.

On all clusters running Ubuntu 20.04, TLS 1.3 support is now available for NGINX, Apache 2, and VarnishSSL. On clusters running Ubuntu 18.04, TLS 1.3 is supported for NGINX and VarnishSSL.

Our command line tool "Cluster Control" is now available in a version for clusters under Debian 8 and in another version for clusters under Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04 and newer. The reason for this change is that Debian 8 is currently only compatible with the older PHP version 7.2, while Ubuntu 18.04 and newer already support more recent PHP versions.

For security reasons, we recommend that our customers protect their account in the Managed Center with 2-factor authentication. If this was activated, it was previously only possible to have a lost secret reset by a maxcluster employee. To make this process more convenient, we have developed alternative restore methods. You can find detailed step-by-step instructions and further information on our FAQ page.

On all Ubuntu clusters, the PHP 8.1 version can be activated in the Managed Center. A comprehensive overview of the relevant innovations and compatibility with existing applications will be provided in our current blog article as of 11/30/2021.

Customers have the option of specifying alternative name servers directly when ordering the domain. Taking the domain with them also ensures that existing DNS configurations are not overwritten.

With the "Supervisor" feature that we offer for Ubuntu clusters, services such as Scheduled Task Runner, Queue Worker or Consumer can now be checked and monitored centrally in our Managed Center. This way, one or more servers can be operated and all services used on them can be managed centrally.

As a user of Cluster Control, in addition to the API Key, you can now also use the Personal Access Token to log in to Cluster Control.

We have improved our automatic ShopSecurity reports once again: The link for the action instruction now points to the server on which the report was created. This gives CWC users in particular a better overview.

As a user of the Managed Center, an individual return path for sendmail configurations can now be set for the VHost. This means that changes can now be made conveniently in self-service.

To make the forwarding via HTTPS more comfortable for our customers, we have added another tab to NGINX and Apache, where you can not only enter the URL, but also the corresponding SSL certificate. Alternatively, a free Let's Encrypt certificate can be activated with just one click.

We have made the selection process even more convenient for customers using NGINX and running a "Symfony" application. There is now the option to simply select "Symfony" in the pull-down menu in the Managed Center in the "Application" /"NGINX" area and run it on the cluster.

To make it easier for customers to work with package management tools, we now offer them the option in the Managed Center both to select the version required by the application and to set a Composer version as the default. At the same time, the version currently in use is displayed.

On April 1, we released a major update to our cluster and customer management software "Managed Center". On our FAQ page we have summarized all relevant information about the changes.

On all Ubuntu clusters, the current version PHP 8.0 can be activated in the Managed Center. A comprehensive overview of the relevant new features and compatibility with existing applications is provided in our blog article PHP 8.0 - Is the update worth it?.

Bei Bedarf kann ein Upgrade auf MySQL 8 durch unseren Service durchgeführt werden. Das Upgrade ist für Ubuntu 18.04 und 20.04 Cluster möglich und kann direkt im Managed Center angefordert werden. Neben der Einführung von Window Funktionen und Common Table Expressions wurden auch die JSON-Funktionen in MySQL 8 erweitert. Durch unsere best practice Konfiguration sind die Datenbank-Instanzen stets performant und hochverfügbar.

Our Managed E-Mail Hosting now supports the so-called "Plus-Addressing". Here, a suffix can be added to the username of the email address by means of a plus sign in order to use different email addresses for different applications or newsletters with one mailbox. All e-mails sent to "username+suffix@domain.test" will be delivered to the mailbox "benutzername@domain.test".

Existing Elasticsearch instances can now be updated directly via the Managed Center. Here, it is also possible to switch to the next major version. In addition, the current versions are deployed much faster on Ubuntu clusters.

Our ShopSecurity security feature becomes even more practical. A daily, automatic domain & malware scan continuously checks the security of online stores. In case of relevant changes or malware findings, the administrators of the cluster are informed directly via email. The automatic report can be activated on clusters with Managed Business and Managed Enterprise service levels.

Daily, automatic snapshots can be configured for Elasticsearch instances. In addition, manual snapshots can be created if required. These are particularly helpful in the event of a version change, as snapshots can always be imported in the next major version of Elasticsearch. This makes the update easier and no complete re-index is necessary.

RabbitMQ is a message broker software that can be used together with Magento 2, for example. One possible use case is the decoupling of the order in the online store from the downstream processes. Sending the order confirmation by e-mail or transferring it to an ERP system then only takes place downstream. The user is redirected directly to the confirmation page. RabbitMQ will be integrated as a new function in the Managed Center and made available to all customers at no additional cost.

From now on, the installation of analysis, ingest and mapper plugins can be done directly in the Managed Center. The very frequently used plugins "analysis-icu" and "analysis-phonetic" are installed on all instances by default.

For our customers with Ubuntu clusters, the latest version 6 of the in-memory database Redis is provided. The update is optional for existing clusters and takes place via the Managed Center.

On April 23, the latest LTS version of Ubuntu was released. We have optimized our e-commerce stack for Ubuntu 20.04 and adapted our Managed Center so that we can now deploy clusters with the new operating system.

In addition to a review of the latest software updates, the Managed Center also provides a preview of the package updates for the upcoming update day.

Customers running Ubuntu 18.04 Cluster can perform an optional update from Redis 4 to version 5 in the Managed Center.

Through several measures, such as additional DNS blocklists, we were able to significantly improve the effectiveness of our spam filters.

The heap size for Elasticsearch can now be adjusted in the Managed Center. In addition, the load is displayed as a graph in the Managed Center monitoring.

The value for the Tideways environment can now be configured from the Managed Center. This is especially useful if you want to collect data from live and staging clusters in a common Tideways account.

The data of a Redis instance can now be emptied without detouring via the Managed Center. This function is also included in Cluster Control for integration into CI/CD processes.

The security of our customers is important to us. Therefore, with the ShopSecurity feature, we offer all our customers a tool to check their store installations for known and potential security vulnerabilities. All information about this can be found in our blog article Security for online shops ‒ The new ShopSecurity.

If you have not already done so, take the opportunity right now to familiarize yourself with the function and check your store.

The latest PHP version 7.4 can now be used on all clusters with Ubuntu 18.04 as operating system. A comprehensive overview of all relevant innovations and compatibility with existing applications is provided in our blog article PHP 7.4 - When is the update worthwhile?.

With the help of our new CLI tool Cluster Control, numerous actions can be performed that were previously only accessible directly via the Managed Center. This is particularly useful for implementing a CI/CD process, as databases and vHosts, among other things, can be created automatically. Further information on how to use it can be found in the Managed Center under Cluster Control.

It is now possible to perform a PHP FPM reload via the Managed Center and the Cluster Control Tools. This allows changes to the PHP configuration to be applied or the opcache and symlink cache to be cleared without having to perform a hard restart. Existing connections are only terminated after a timeout of 30 seconds, so that browser requests are generally not affected.