Release Highlights

Upgrading to Lithium

General Upgrade Considerations

• With the changes in the Perspectium application related to ServiceNow's deprecation of the GlideEncrypter API, it is recommended you upgrade all your Perspectium applications to the Lithium version in order to leverage the new Encrypt on Send encryption option and encrypt data using AES encryption method.  
• For considerations related to the deprecation of the GlideEncrypter API (such as installing the Perspectium application on a clean instance of Yokohama, see our documentation on here.
• It is suggested to not use TripleDES as the encryption method going forward as there will be performance issues since a third-party JavaScript library is now used for TripleDES encryption and is substantially slower than the GlideEncrypter API. This is due to the library being executed externally at the client platform level whereas ServiceNow APIs are ran at a lower platform level with more direct access to the data. As well, Triple DES as a security encryption standard is no longer a recommended option per NIST-800-131A (and the reason ServiceNow is removing GlideEncrypter). 

Perspectium Core ServiceNow Application

• See the General Upgrade Considerations section above about upgrading all your Perspectium applications to Lithium.
• It is recommended to do incremental upgrades so you're upgrading from a more recent major version to Lithium. Ideally you are upgrading from Krypton to Lithium so if you are on an older version, we recommend you first upgrade to Krypton (or at the very least Iodine) before upgrading to Lithium. Upgrading from a really old version such as Fluorine can lead to issues due to the many changes in the Perspectium application in between major versions. 
• Related to the general upgrade consideration about not using TripleDES, after doing the upgrade to Lithium, we suggest you update your dynamic shares and clone your bulk shares to use an AES encryption method such as AES-128 or AES-256.  NOTE: If you using AES-256, you will have to update your encryption key to be 32+ characters in your shared queue or default DataSync Settings.
• To leverage the performance changes with the GlideEncrypter decryption, follow the setup in Encrypting Content Sent to MBS Approach to use the Encrypt on Send option.
• For those with installs of Krypton 8.4.0 or older, you will need to upgrade your Perspectium application to Lithium before the GlideEncrypter API is completely removed in the Zurich release in Q4 2025 since we will need to use the GlideEncrypter API to migrate your properties over. The GlideEncrypter API is needed in order to access your current encryption key and MBS credentials from ServiceNow's backend to save back into the system in the password2 field types. Otherwise, if you do not upgrade before then, you will have to manually re-enter your MBS credentials and default encryption keys in the Perspectium Properties page (information will be provided in Q4 2025 on how to enter it manually).
• If you request a new instance of ServiceNow with Yokohama, the GlideEncrypter API will not be available. You will only be able to install Lithium 9.2.0 or newer as older versions of the Perspectium application use GlideEncrypter.
  • This only applies to new instances as instances that are upgraded to Yokohama from a previous version (such as Xanadu) will still have the GlideEncrypter API until the complete removal of it with the Zurich release of ServiceNow in Q4 2025.
  • If you install an older version of Perspectium on a new instance with Yokohama, you will get the error java.lang.SecurityException: Unsupported call to GlideEncrypter. Details: GlideEncrypter is deprecated and now returns null, please refer KB1320986 for alternatives; Reason: TripleDES deprecation; Category: Security when running the application.

• If you were previously using the Perspectium Core application with your properties stored in the sys_properties table, you will need to re-enter your secure properties manually after upgrading. The sys_properties records cannot be accessed to move over.  NOTE: This is a non-standard approach and not enabled by default (you would have worked directly with the Perspectium team to enable this). Contact support@perspectium.com for more information.
• Follow these steps to upgrade the Perspectium Core ServiceNow application to Lithium.

DataSync Agent

• See the General Upgrade Considerations section above about upgrading all your Perspectium applications to Lithium.
• Related to the general upgrade consideration about not using TripleDES, after doing the upgrade to Lithium and updating the Perspectium Core ServiceNow application to an AES encryption method, you will only have to update the Agent's agent.xml configuration file if you change the encryption key (see the Perspectium Core ServiceNow Application section above for more details). 
• If you are leveraging the Encrypt on Send option as detailed in Encrypting Content Sent to MBS Approach, you will only need to upgrade to a Lithium version of the DataSync Agent. You do not need to make any other configuration changes in the Agent.
• Backup your current DataSync Agent's installation (the entire directory containing the installed DataSync Agent and its configurations) prior to doing an upgrade.
• Follow these steps to upgrade the DataSync Agent to Lithium.

Meshlets

• See the General Upgrade Considerations section above about upgrading all your Perspectium applications to Lithium.
• Related to the general upgrade consideration about not using TripleDES, after doing the upgrade to Lithium and updating the Perspectium Core ServiceNow application to an AES encryption method, you will only have to update the meshlet's application.yml configuration file if you change the encryption key (see the Perspectium Core ServiceNow Application section above for more details). 
• If you are leveraging the Encrypt on Send option as detailed in Encrypting Content Sent to MBS Approach, you will only need to upgrade to a Lithium version of the meshlet. You do not need to make any other configuration changes in the meshlet.
• Backup your meshlet's installation (the entire directory containing the installed meshlet and its configurations) prior to doing an upgrade.
• Follow these steps to upgrade a meshlet to Lithium.

Release Names and Packaging

The releases name are in the format of <Major>.<Minor/Patch>.<Hotfix>. The contents of a release package are based on the name and are as follows:

Release Compatibility

Perspectium tests n-2 compatibility with each release e.g. the previous two major releases of the Agent prior to this release has been tested with the latest version of ServiceNow.