Flag update flow

This is legacy documentation

CloudBees Feature Management is now part of CloudBees Unify. For current feature management documentation, go to CloudBees Unify Feature management.

This documentation covers the original CloudBees Feature Management product (formerly Rollout.io), which is end-of-life. It remains available only for existing customers who are migrating to CloudBees Unify.

Support during the extension period

Because CloudBees Feature Management is an end-of-life product, support during the extension period is limited to critical items only:

Critical security fixes: High-impact security issues are in scope and will be addressed.
Critical bug fixes: Reviewed case by case; resolution is not guaranteed.
General support, enhancements, and non-critical fixes: Not provided for end-of-life products during the extension period.

This coverage is consistent with the CloudBees end-of-life policy in the support Terms & Conditions.

Changes in the CloudBees Feature Management UI affect flag values on the client device, such as a mobile app, web app, or backend system. You can control these changes using flag update flow.

Stateless architecture

CloudBees Feature Management uses a stateless architecture by default, which means that each SDK pulls a static JSON file from CloudBees Feature Management cloud storage.

The CloudBees Feature Management stateless architecture includes the following advantages:

Scale - Regardless of whether your users number in the hundreds or the millions, the SDK fetches a static file.
Speed - No computation is done on the CloudBees Feature Management servers. All flag computation is done in memory on the target platform.
Resiliency - CloudBees Feature Management servers are NOT in the critical path of your software. If CloudBees Feature Management ever goes down, you are simply unable to update flags in the UI. There are no effects on your application. The SDKs have a caching mechanism, which minimizes effects in the case of a network issue.
Privacy - CloudBees Feature Management does not have access to or save customer data, including any personally identifiable information (PII). All customer targeting occurs on the client side.
Global Usage - CloudBees Feature Management leverages the power of Amazon CloudFront for its Content Delivery Network (CDN). The deliberate inclusion of CloudFront in CloudBees Feature Management architecture provides a unique advantage over other CDN solutions that often experience geographic outages and other issues, because the CloudBees Feature Management CDN does not require proxies or bootstrapping to maintain a connection.

Note - CloudBees Feature Management uses Server Sent Event (SSE) to alert the SDKs to download a new JSON config file in response to any configuration changes, so all changes are propagated to the clients instantly upon modification.

Client-side SDK update flow

SDK setup flow

The client SDK setup flow operates in the following sequence:

Synchronous local storage fetching:
- The application calls the Rox SDK setup function
- The SDK checks for existing configuration in local storage
- The configuration is applied synchronously
- Setup function returns with all configured flags applied on the device
Asynchronous network fetching
- In parallel to the local storage flow, an asynchronous network request is called from the SDK to the CloudBees Feature Management storage services
- When the network request is returned:
  - Configuration is applied
  - Configuration is saved in local storage

Figure 1. Client-side SDK update flow

SDK foreground configuration fetching flow

When the SDK identifies a foreground event on clients such as mobile or TV, it triggers an asynchronous configuration fetching sequence to get a new configuration, if one exists, on CloudBees Feature Management servers.

Figure 2. Configuration fetching flow

Refer to Understanding a flag freeze for more information.

Server-side SDK update flow

Server-side SDKs fetch a new configuration file periodically. Various settings for each SDK are listed below:

SDK	Default (in seconds)	Minimum (in seconds)	Additional notes
JVM	60	30
.NET	60	30
Node.js	60	30
JS SSR	60	30
Python	60	30
Go	60	30	The optional parameter type is `time.duration` in nano-seconds.
PHP	30	30	PHP differs from other server-side SDKs in that it is not a live server, but a cache on the storage with a strategy that expires every 30 seconds. CloudBees Feature Management uses `Kevinrob\GuzzleCache\CacheMiddleware` with a strategy.
C	60	30	There is an additional `0` option permitted to indicate that the fetch is periodic.
C++	60	30	There is an additional `0` option permitted to indicate that the fetch is periodic.

To change the default time frame, use FetchInterval / fetchIntervalInSec at the RoxOptions object. Refer to the following example:

RoxOptions options = new RoxOptions.Builder()
  .withFetchIntervalInSeconds(50)
  .withVersion("1.2.0")
  .build();
Rox.setup(this, options);▼

RoxOptions options = new RoxOptions(new RoxOptions.RoxOptionsBuilder{
    Version = "1.0.4",
    FetchInterval = 60
});
await Rox.Setup(appKey, options);▼

Rox.register('', container);
const options = {
  version: '2.0.0',
  fetchIntervalInSec: 60
};
Rox.setup(ROLLOUT_KEY, options);▼

from rox.server.rox import Rox
from rox.server.rox_options import RoxOptions

# setup configuration_fetched_handler in the options object
options = RoxOptions(
    version="1.3.1"
    fetch_interval=60
)
cancel_event = Rox.setup('<key>', options).result();▼

import (
  "time"
  "github.com/rollout/rox-go/v5/server"
  "github.com/rollout/rox-go/v5/core/model"
)
var rox *server.Rox

func setupRollout() {
options := server.NewRoxOptions(server.RoxOptionsBuilder{
Version: "2.0.0",
FetchInterval: time.Minute })
rox = server.NewRox()
}▼

use Rox\Server\Rox;
use Rox\Server\RoxOptions;
use Rox\Server\RoxOptionsBuilder;

$roxOptionsBuilder = (new RoxOptionsBuilder())
->setVersion("2.0.0")
->setConfigFetchIntervalInSeconds(60);

Rox::setup(ROLLOUT_KEY, new RoxOptions($roxOptionsBuilder));▼

#include <rox/server.h>

RoxOptions *options = rox_options_create();
rox_options_set_fetch_interval(options, 60);
rox_setup(DEFAULT_API_KEY, options);▼

#include <roxx/server.h>

Rox::Options *options = Rox::OptionsBuilder()
  .SetFetchInterval(60)
  .Build();

Rox::Setup(DEFAULT_API_KEY, options);▼

Configuration fetched handler

Refer to Configuration fetched handler for how to identify when the SDK has loaded the configuration from local storage or the network.