Major update including new Sports functionality, Channel classifications, Datadog enhancements, Productboard link, several infrastructure modifications.*
Note: This is a major release for the AXIS Platform (Presentation Manager and APIs).
This release supports the first phase of Sports content in AXIS. The 6.0 releases (December '20) for web, iOS, and Android support Sports content on Reference apps.
Upgrade notes
Upgrading from AXIS 8.0 to AXIS 9.0 is a straightforward process. However, for those on AXIS 7.X or lower, we recommend upgrading directly to AXIS 9.0.
Overview
Introducing a major update containing the first phase of the new Sports functionality, Datadog enhancements, and several infrastructure modifications.
What’s new
The first phase of AXIS sports
Bringing you the first phase of Sports functionality for AXIS, we have several exciting updates that support the new features and user experience. Providing the ability to surface and promote events depending on their state, Upcoming, Live, or VOD, assets are promoted in various ways.
New sports asset types
Delivering four new Sports asset types as part of the AXIS 9.0 release, these include:
- Confederations
- Competitions
- Stages
- Events
Assets contain metadata (including asset images), Offers, and an internal reference to a video file if applicable. To learn more, read our assets article.
See below for asset type examples:
| Asset Types | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Confederations | Competitions | Stages | Events |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Football | FIFA | World Cup Qualifiers (2019-2020)
|
Play-offs | Match between two teams, e.g., England vs. Sweden |
| Groups stages | ||||
| Quarter-Finals | ||||
| Semi-Finals | ||||
| Final | ||||
| Baseball | MLB | Play-off Season Final (2019-2020) | Final | Match between two teams, e.g., Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Atlanta Braves |
| Motorsport | N/A | Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (2020) | Nürburgring Grand Prix | Qualifying 1 |
| Practice 2 | ||||
| Race 1 | ||||
New sports fields
We've added several new fields in line with the new sports asset types; these include:
| Asset field | Asset types |
|---|---|
| Sport | Confederation, Competition, Stage, Event, Program, Custom |
| Round | Event |
| Year Start | Competition |
| Year End | Competition |
| Event Start | Event |
| Event End | Event |
| Sequence Number | Stage, Event, Program, Custom |
Note: All metadata is editable within Presentation Manager and can be consumed by Rocket API clients.
New sports item detail pages
Introducing new Item detail page templates to support the sports functionalities, see below for page templates and available sports-specific row types:
Confederation details page
Display specific sports Confederation details and utilize OOTB analytics for user behavior tracking.
Supported Sports specific rows:
| Page region | Row | Row details |
|---|---|---|
| Header/hero row | SHCF1 (16:9) Hero | Asset's key metadata is left-aligned over a 16:9 wallpaper and logo. This row supports the ability to share the page URL through the device's native OS share functionality. |
| Body row | STV2 Events row (16:9) | A vertical list of Live and upcoming Event 16:9 asset tiles from the same Confederation or Competitions. With a limited amount of visible items, the "Show More" button displays additional assets. Initiate playback for Live events and navigate to the Event detail page for near-future events. |
Competition details page
Display specific sports Competition details and utilize OOTB analytics for user behavior tracking.
Supported sports-specific rows:
| Page region | Row | Row details |
|---|---|---|
| Header/hero row |
SHC1 (16:9) Hero |
Asset's key metadata is left-aligned over a 16:9 wallpaper and logo. This row supports the ability to share the page URL through the device's native OS share functionality.
|
| Body |
STV2 Events (16:9) |
A vertical list of Event 16:9 asset tiles from the same Confederation or Competitions. With a limited amount of visible items, the Show more button displays additional assets. Initiate playback for Live events and navigate to the Event detail page for near-future events.
|
| ST1 Stages (16:9) | A single horizontal scrollable row of Event (fixtures) asset tiles within a Competition. This row displays a Show all button if further assets exist. Selecting Show all redirects users to a List page where the remaining assets are shown. Selecting an asset tile displays the Event page. | |
|
ST3 Events grid (16:9) |
A double row of horizontal assets displaying all prior Events within the assets related Competition. Filter events within a specific Stage using the stage selector functionality. This row displays a Show more icon displays if additional assets exist. |
Event details page
Display specific sports event details and utilize OOTB analytics for user behavior tracking.
Supported Sports specific rows:
| Page region | Row | Row details |
|---|---|---|
| Header/hero row |
SHE1 (16:9) Hero |
Assets or related assets key metadata and actions are left-aligned over a 16:9 wallpaper and logo. Initiate video playback via the Watch button, or save the asset for later via the Bookmark button. This row supports the ability to share the page URL through the device's native OS share functionality. |
| Body rows | STV3 Events row (16:9) |
A vertical double list of Event 16:9 asset tiles from the same Confederation or Competition. The title and the tagline display with a limited amount of visible items, the Show more button displays additional assets. Initiate playback for live events and navigate to the Event detail page for near-future events.
|
| ST3 Events grid (16:9) | A double row of horizontal assets displaying all Events within the assets related Competition. Filter events within a specific Stage using the stage selector functionality. This row displays a Show more icon displays if additional assets exist. |
Parental rating on channels
We've implemented PIN protection on channels, meaning if configured, viewers are prompted to enter the parental PIN upon Channel selection. To set this up, channels have a new metadata field called Classification, which can be used by the standard rating-based catalog filtering and players.
If the Channel Classification exceeds the configured Parental Lock Classification settings, viewers must enter the PIN to proceed.
Introducing Productboard
Productboard is a publically accessible tool used for our product roadmap and feature requests, replacing Canny.io. Easily accessible from within the header of Presentation Manager, check out our frequently updated Recently released features, Development in progress (now), and Committed roadmap plans (next).
We'd love to hear your ideas and feedback, helping us to capture customer priorities.
Select the 
button in the top right-hand corner and rate your suggestion's importance.
Enhanced Datadog integrations
As part of the AXIS 8.3 release, we brought you the Datadog monitoring tool, replacing New Relic. We've been working on enhanced Datadog logging capability, providing improved support for issue investigation and triage.
Datadog Log management
We've refactored all the AXIS components to send logs to Datadog Log Management and have discontinued CloudWatch Logs. This vastly simplifies and proves the monitoring of the AXIS Platform; the logs can be easily searched and correlated with APM traces within the Datadog UI.
Additional service containerization
What does this mean? We've been working on improving our back-end services' scalability and security by shortening the start-up times, thus reducing the risk of downtime and costs incurred by standby capacity. This process depends on adopting new technologies that are more performant and cost-effective to run, e.g., Linux-based containers that replace our traditionally hosted Windows-based components.
We've containerized the following components:
- AXIS Stripe Proxy
- AXIS Stripe Webhook
- AXIS Email Service Proxy
If your project utilizes any of the above components, we will handle the upgrade, meaning traffic is redirected to the new implementation.
Upgrade considerations
To benefit from the newest developments, there are several reasons to upgrade to AXIS 9.0:
- Improved monitorability with Datadog
- Numerous security and scalability improvements
- Increased modularisation and testability for project teams
- Increased scalability and traffic handling capabilities
- Simplified upgrade process
What’s changed
- The Classification field is now optional for all asset types
What's fixed
- Fixed an issue that caused Presentation Manager to fail when Datadog is not enabled
- Fixed an issue with the Accessibility Check functionality that resulted in a failure when the score was 3
What's fixed
Fixed a bug that affects asset ingestion backward compatibility