Altis Cloud version 15 is here! We’ve got an action-packed update for you, including support for PHP 8.2, self-service domain management, and more.
What’s under the hood in Altis Cloud v15?
PHP 8.2
Altis Cloud v15 fully supports PHP 8.2 in both local and cloud environments. There are a number of backward incompatible changes in PHP 8.2 which should be taken into consideration and addressed.
For information on testing and upgrading, please refer to our PHP Version Guide for up-to-date compatibility.
Self-service domain management
We’ve introduced the ability to add new domains to your environments directly from the Altis Dashboard, removing the need to contact support and wait for engineers to add your domain.
Previously, engineers would need to manually add your domain to the environment to provide you with the necessary DNS verification records, followed by further manual work to configure your CDN correctly. This back-and-forth process could potentially take days of working with stakeholders.
Now, the Altis Dashboard will give you back the verification records immediately, and will automatically configure your CDN once they’re ready. This allows you to add new domains and launch new sites on your own timeline without waiting, potentially saving days of turnaround time.
We want to empower you and your team to deliver value faster, and we’re always working on improving our self-service tools to better deliver this goal. We’re progressively rolling this feature out to customers; please contact support to enable it early.
WordPress 6.2
WordPress 6.2 brings the Site Editor out of beta with an updated interface, giving you a new way to interact with the entire site.
The WordPress 6.2 release also brings a new sidebar, offering a smoother experience with the Block Inserter and integration with the extensive library of free stock media Openverse Catalog. Writing-focused improvements will delight your content creators with the Distraction Free mode.
Several performance improvements are also included with the latest WordPress release.
The WordPress 6.2 Field Guide is a great place to learn about what’s new, but here are some of the highlights:
- Site Editor out of beta
- There is a new server-side HTML parsing API
- Better PHP 8.0-8.2 compatibility with the updated Requests library
- Bundled fonts in themes
PHP 7.4 security support
Security is one of our top priorities, so we take it super seriously. In Altis Cloud v13, we removed support for PHP 7.4. However, we recognise that some customers may still need to run 7.4, so we have released new PHP images which will receive backported security fixes from maintained branches.
We strongly recommend customers upgrade to PHP 8 as soon as possible.
Altis Core improvements & documentation
A number of modules and libraries have been updated to incorporate important bug fixes and improvements. Our developer-focused documentation has been clarified and improved, taking on board feedback from our customers and partners.
Coming soon: Altis Cloud v16
Altis Cloud v16 will be performance-based release that sees updates across a few different areas relating to the performance of end-user sites.
We’ll be introducing Afterburner, our PHP extension designed specifically to turbocharge your WordPress performance on Altis Cloud. Afterburner includes our brand new high-performance object cache solution, as well as reimagining how translations work within WordPress.