Can we have PCA GraphQL on WEB 8.5?

Question

We are currently on WEB 8.5 and maybe in sometime we migrate to Sites 9.x, "in a planning mode". What we liked the most about the Sites 9 is the GraphQL API, which we would like to access with WEB 8.5 also to feed all our applications WEB, MOBILE.

Now, My question is there a way we can have PCA with WEB 8.5. Any suggestion on this will be really helpful.

Thanks

Answer 1

Well, I did some PoC in the past on this topic, you can read more about this, and to answer your question YES, you can have PCA api working with WEB 8.5.

You need to follow below steps.

1. Create new Broker and state_store DB with Tridion Sites 9 DB scripts.
2. Install Sites 9 Discovery,Deployer and Content service.
3. Create new Topology Type and mappings and map them with BPT.

Answer 2

AFAIK - and I can say officially it is not supported and tested, but I can’t think of anything which would break it. this is all unofficial

Note:

• As long as you don’t have SmartTarget in there, as in 8.5 SmartTarget was the Fredhopper version.
• From Sites 9.0 - officially we support CM's first upgrades.
• On the positive side, the java version on 8.5 and 11.0 is Java 8
• If your Implementation uses DXA then refer to DXA and CIL are compatible

Always good to raise to SDL Support and get their feedback.

I hope it helps