Sometimes you are trying to troubleshoot one thing and end up solving another :), How many of you have ended up same?
Well, I was actually troubleshooting the high CPU and no. of requests on CD was trying to find some error patterns from Sitecore logs for one of the issues we were facing, there was one specific error which we kept observing was below
Exception
and if you drill further down into it, Sitecore was looking for master DB on CD servers, which is not possible, so definitely, this is bug
It was clear that because some the code which is in "VersionInitializer" class of "SItecore.XA.Foundation.Upgrade.dll" is referring to "master" database on a CD server.
So, I just tried dissembling the DLL to understand what's going on and you can see below
It is clearly seen that code is referring to wrong DB instead of the context DB, it is "master" DB and that is the reason of the error
Solution
Further troubleshooting and research suggested that this can be safely ignored, and this comes only when the instance is starting, but just to keep our logs clean we just commented out below lines from "\App_Config\Modules\SXA\Foundation\Sitecore.XA.Foundation.Upgrade.config" of CD instance
and if you are PODCAST lover, find the podcast here
I would highly recommend going through above video or podcast to understand "Low code, No code" and what is "FeaaS" and power of it, As LCAPs (Low Code Application Platforms) are growing at the speed of around 25% every year, And it's a future.
Now, Let's talk about Part-2 of it, more advance use cases of "XM Cloud FeaaS", Once you have understanding of the component builder, you can do wonders, and this part-2 we will talk about something amazing it can do which is BYOC, Bringing Your Own Components.
What is BYOC - Bring Your Own Code (Or Components)
In Part-1, this feature BYOC was still under development, but now it is live from long time and available and as its name suggests, you can technically bring your already developed react / NextJS component directly into XM Cloud, Developers can bring their own code (BYOC) by referencing an external code base that includes components so that they can be used in the component builder interface.
Sounds so powerful right? Also, it could be great sellable point or a feature where, you do not have to rewrite your business code which you had in those components which you have created in react or NextJS, that means you can almost get them working straight into XM Cloud.
It opens endless possibilities for those customers who already have their component libraries and the sites using those components, and with composable features of XM Cloud, they can reuse their code too.
My Experience working with it.
There are three options I have personally configured and work like a charm.
1) If you have XM Cloud Starter Kit Repo and XM Cloud Project already, it has seamless support where you can just do certain configurations and your react/NextJS components which are in XM Cloud StarterKit code will come to life in component builder, we will see the steps later in this blog
2) If you have existing NextJS components already, you can bring those components straight to your builder & start using them on "Pages".
3) If you have existing react components already, you can bring those components straight to your builder & start using them on "Pages".
You can bifurcate these approaches in two broader categories.
1) Using an existing rendering host of XM Cloud - When your components are made part of XM Cloud Startkit which you are already using, in that case you do not require to add any external rendering host, XM Cloud default rendering host will take care of it.
2) Using "External Rendering Host" - In cases where your react/NextJS components are already residing in some other source control and live on some other sites and which you want to bring into XM Cloud component builder, Here it needs the live URL of the site to be configured into XM Cloud, If the components are configured correctly (which I will show you in this blog), XM Cloud will read those components too.
What are the steps?
Ok, Let's talk about the steps first,
1) If you are trying to use your react or NextJS components to be made available, then first you will need to install below in your code repo
npm install @sitecore-feaas/clientside
2) Go to your component which you want to import and write below line
Remember BYOC support is out of the box for XM Clodud Starter repo, above steps are only for if you want your existing NextJS component to be registered and available in XMC as external rendering host
I think it is very powerful way of working where you can just Bring Your Code in and it just works, That means you do not have to rewrite those components for xm cloud but you will be able to see those components exactly like your current react site and will be able to drag & drop them on the pages
