Enhancements and Features​

Add password to workflow schema​

Workflows now have a password field which can be used by workflow developers to hide text as its being entered.

Cluster provisioning failures will show a banner​

If a cluster fails to provision, a red banner will be shown at the top of the page indicating that the cluster should be destroyed.

Workflow run page improvements​

You can now cancel a workflow run and view running sessions from a workflow's Run page

Bug Fixes​

• Orphan alerts should not be sent for cross platforms
• Auto close toasts, limit to 3 toasts on screen at once
• Cannot select old sessions in provision status viewer
• Tooltip hide under the toggle after recursive renders

Enhancements and Features​

Image dropdown now shows required disk size​

We now show the required disk size you will need to use an image in the image selection dropdown.

Snapshot disks that were configured inline​

You can now create snapshots from disks that were configured inline in the cluster configuration page. You may do so from the clusters "Sessions" page in the attached storages table.

Show workload metrics on kubernetes workload pages​

You can now see CPU usage, Memory Usage, and Storage usage for kubernetes workloads (statefulsets, deployments, etc). These are viewable from the workload pages. These metrics show combined usage for all pods managed by that resource. We will have individual pod metrics in an upcoming release.

Platform administrators receive deletion failure alerts​

Platform administrators will now receive an alert whenever the platform detects that a resource deletion might not have been processed correctly.

Ability to edit YAML directly from kubernetes definition​

You can now edit Kubernetes resources by modifying them directly on the YAML editor.

Azure AI chat in public preview​

You can now provision and chat with OpenAI models on Azure. To enable this feature preview, use the feature preview menu.

Cloud cluster observability​

Cloud clusters will now have CPU, Memory, and Root Disk charts at the top of the cluster details page.

Bug Fixes​

• Load from market place clears out some fields
• Disable snapshot button while request is pending
• Snapshot names not showing on cluster details page
• Publish from action bar does not work
• Cannot snapshot disks provisioned on clusters using auto zone selection
• Connect via ssh button not disabled while cluster starting
• Not found if clicking edit from jobs page
• Cost dashboard print not working
• Cannot start shared cluster with admin/write access
• Azure managed lustre is not marked as ready
• Some secrets don't show eye icon
• Search bar crashes with some special characters
• Disabled menu items have incorrect styling
• Broken link to docs on new workflow
• Can't start google nodes of a3 family
• Traffic light does not turn off when there is no requested nodes
• Unable to make snapshot of snapshot
• Intermittent google key creation failures
• Use attempts for gaia delete jobs instead of expireTime to avoid context deadline exceed
• Creation page now just says name instead of resource name
• Provision status stucks at collecting variables and delete requested when rabbitmq connection fails
• Various session bug fixes

Documentation Changes​

• Update user guide with new cluster configuration layout
• Add information about user defaults
• Add new Managing Orgs pages

Enhancements and Features​

Existing provider now has password support​

In addition to keyboard-interactive, the existing cluster provider can now support older password ssh connections

Improved information display for kubernetes​

Kubernetes workload pages now use a more readable format to show relevant information.

Bug Fixes​

• Capacity reservation table moves around on refresh
• Various marketplace/workflow bugs
• Allow clicking outside the HPC Connect modal to close it after connection
• Node runtime is incorrect when it has been more than 1 day

Bug Fixes​

• Openstack doesn't have "Latest" image option
• Cannot create azure ip address
• Traffic light can crash compute module when debugging nodes provisioning
• Recreating a cluster with the same name as a previously deleted one retained the configuration of the deleted cluster.
• PW CLI not authenticated inside of workflows

Documentation Changes​

• Add video walkthrough to Navigating the Platform

Enhancements and Features​

Storage runtime alerts​

You can now receive runtime alerts for storage. You may choose to turn on/off runtime alert in storage's properties tab. This will send you a notification after your storage has been running longer than the interval specified. You can configure if you receive the notifications via the platform inbox or via email through your account settings.

Bug Fixes​

• Prepend parallelworks: to groups prefix in kubernetes

Bug Fixes​

• Ontap causes long openstack cluster page loading time
• Cannot create new ai chats
• Workflows can't use empty string as dropdown's first option
• OS snapshots won't create or delete
• Google key creation
• Ssh client dying would cause workflow sessions to no longer work

Enhancements and Features​

Allow setting latest image​

Admins can now set the latest image directly from the admin panel

Update bootstrap scripts while cluster is running​

Users can now update cluster bootstrap script and its toggles (controller/compute) while cluster is running

Kubernetes available in feature preview​

Organizations can now add kubernetes clusters and share them with specific groups. Users in those groups will be able to use the pw CLI to add a context to their local kubeconfig, allowing users to run kubectl commands. Kubernetes resources are now visible in the platform for users that have access to the cluster.

Bug Fixes​

• Fields not pre-populated when editing capacity reservations
• /etc/profile.d/pw.sh variables are not quoted
• Azure ML workspace fails to provision due to incorrect domain
• Traffic light doesnt display correctly for next gen clusters

Enhancements and Features​

AWS OS Snapshots​

You can now snapshot AWS root disks and then boot your cluster using that snapshot.

OS Snapshots generally available​

OS Snapshots are now a generally available feature. You can create a snapshot by going to your cluster, and selecting create snapshot next to the root disk. After doing so, you can choose that snapshot as the image to use when starting a cluster. This is a direct replacement for the old scripted method of creating OS images via the account settings page. We will be removing that method of creating snapshots in an upcoming release.

Bug Fixes​

• Remove description placeholder for on demand capacity reservations
• Failed to share message should be failed to publish
• Marketplace apps not showing display name on apps page

Enhancements and Features​

Capacity Reservation description field​

You can now set descriptions on Capacity Reservations

Ability to manually create sessions​

You can now manually create sessions without having to start a workflow. Try this out by clicking the Add session button on the Sessions page.

Bug Fixes​

• Netapp ontap cannot be deleted
• Move optional session options to advanced
• Start ssh connection button is not full width
• Workflow executing message shows even if theres a validation error
• Azure ML studio is only soft deleted
• No confirmation on marketplace item deletion
• Space in reservation id causes node provision failure
• Remote workflows cannot be forked from marketplace

Enhancements and Features​

Azure on-demand capacity reservations billing​

Azure on-demand capacity reservations reservations are now billed to the group added in the organization settings page

Bug Fixes​

• Remove session tags for sessionless cloud infrastructure
• Path being removed from shells

Bug Fixes​

• Cli version not set on mac os
• Marketplace search hides headers with no results
• Automatically stop user workspace when user deleted
• Provisioned snapshot names are longer than necessary
• AI Chat is returned from API with storages
• Show error if AI Chat API credentials are not working

Bug Fixes​

• Partitions dropdown not populating

Enhancements and Features​

Add custom nfs configuration to cluster attached storages​

You can now specify custom NFS mounts via the cluster configuration form. This applies to cloud clusters and OpenStack clusters.

Bug Fixes​

• Ai chat does not skip searching buckets when no bucket attached
• Provisioned snapshot never marked ready
• Detach custom nfs fails on validation
• Cluster definition shows inline disk options when selecting persistent disk
• Validate ontap name is provided and flatten API structure
• Ebs and efs cost estimation does not reflect throughput and provisioned iops
• Group shutdown fails

Bug Fixes​

• Marketplace fork from add page redirects to incorrect page

Enhancements and Features​

Allow tracking of compute node egress cost on azure​

Use Load Balancer as Nat Gateway option has been added to azure infrastructures. This will make it so a load balancer is created with each cluster and all egress traffic from partitions will go through the load balancer allowing tracking of egress cost.

Azure ML Workspace feature preview publicly available​

The Azure ML Workspace feature preview has been made publicly available. To try this feature out, enable it from the feature preview section.

Add Support for Azure and Google capacity reservations​

Capacity reservations are now supported on Azure and Google Cloud. Organization administrators can now specify which CSP the capacity reservation is for when adding the capacity reservation. On the cluster edit form, the input field for capacity reservations has been changed to a dropdown.

Bug Fixes​

• Search bar doesn't show on 404 page
• Prevent search from opening by hotkey when in a text box

Enhancements and Features​

NetApp ONTAP support​

We now support managing NetApp ONTAP volumes directly from the ACTIVATE platform. These volumes can also be mounted to OpenStack clusters which have network access to the NFS exports provided by the ONTAP service.

Show which cluster a session is targeting​

You can now see which cluster a session is targeting from the Sessions widget and from the Sessions page.

Search bar supports storage​

Storage items now appear in the platform search

Show csp id on image list​

The admin panel platform image list now shows the CSP's unique identifier for the image.

Bug Fixes​

• Deleting organization does not properly delete users
• Uppercase workflow fields were not allowed

Enhancements and Features​

OpenStack generally available​

OpenStack clusters are now generally available to create via the Parallel Works ACTIVATE platform.

Bug Fixes​

• Storage list not updating after deleting a storage

Enhancements and Features​

Organizations can reset custom sidebar settings to platform defaults​

Organizations can now reset the organization-wide default sidebar settings to the platform defaults by using the radio button available on the user defaults page.

Bug Fixes​

• Search bar links to cli docs are incorrect

Enhancements and Features​

Search bar​

You can now search the platform and documentation via a new search bar at the top of the UI. Open this with cmd + k on Mac OS or ctrl + k on Windows.

Allow using AWS and Google cluster controllers as nat instances​

Use Controllers as NAT Gateways option has been added on AWS/Google infrastructure configurations. Enabling this option will make it so all traffic from compute nodes are proxied through the controller. All compute nodes will share the same IP as the controller node. This will enable tracking egress costs from compute nodes.

Provision public IP addresses on Azure​

You can now provision public IP addresses on Azure independently of other compute resources. After provisioning a public IP it can then be assigned to a compute cluster controller node.

Ai chat provision status​

Improved provisioning status logs shown when creating an AI Chat resource

Bug Fixes​

• Crashes when extra email is not found as platform user
• Aws snapshots show provisioned before actually ready
• Platform image with space and parenthesis could not be deleted
• Better error messages on aws disk provisioning error
• Page crashes if feature previews not loaded in time
• Able to save google and azure lustre without selecting instance type

Enhancements and Features​

Organization specified default sidebars​

Organizations can now define a default sidebar for new users. Users that have not customized their sidebar will automatically use the organization's default settings. If the organization does not specify a customized sidebar then all sidebar items will be visible by default.

Optional dns server​

Adds an optional DNS service to platform deployments which can resolve slurm cluster hostnames if needed

Add cli list for cluster, app, workflow, and session​

Add Email and Notify Allocation Alerts options to organization settings​

Added Cost Alert notification type and user preferences.

OpenStack clusters can assign floating ip to compute nodes​

Bug Fixes​

• Snapshots show provisioned earlier than expected

Documentation Changes​

• Merge apps and workflows pages

Enhancements and Features​

Update openstack cluster definition page​

Added cluster cost estimation for openstack

Admin-only debug mode for cloud clusters​

Platform administrators can now toggle Debug Mode in cluster Advanced Settings section.

When turned on, users can ssh into the node without waiting for it to be ready using ssh root@<nodeip>. Can be done from the user workspace or user's personal computer (if public key is added in the platform). Node clean up will not happen if there is any error in provisioning.

Bug Fixes​

• Sidebar not always highlighting active item
• Apps shared to marketplace were not labeled as apps

Documentation Changes​

• Customizing the platform
• Improved API docs

Enhancements and Features​

Support capacity block type for aws reservation​

Supports aws capacity block reservation type on next gen clusters

Enhancements and Features​

Add flavor pricing table to openstack infra page​

• Add flavor pricing table to openstack infra page. This page will display the synced flavors from openstack project.

Add openstack to realtime​

Realtime now processes openstack data.

Bug Fixes​

• Able to to start a workflow without selecting required field while using app.target as the default value
• Environment variables not available on workflow cleanup steps
• New ssh key not showing after creation
• Starting a session on existing clusters would fail under certain cases

Documentation Changes​

• Add page for managing static IP addresses
• IP page corrections/improvements
• SSH key update

Bug Fixes​

• Updated workflow yaml not reflected with page navigation
• Alphabetize IP address options
• Sessions started on shared clusters not working
• Icon not showing for sessions started from github workflow
• Root snapshots not in image list

Enhancements and Features​

Allow editing widget names on home page​

You can now edit widget names on home page. Click Customize and you will now see an edit icon next to the widgets name.

Bug Fixes​

• Creating a session with the same name as previous session results in wrong ports
• Sessions print wrong json field names to log

Enhancements and Features​

Added icons to sessions list​

Sessions that were created by workflows will now show the workflow icon next to the session

Remove resource monitor home page widget​

The resource monitor module has been removed from the front page. In order to not disturb saved layouts you will need to manually remove the module where the resource monitor was previously.

Add apps panel to home page​

You can now edit the workflow home page widget to change which workflow type to show. The default home page widgets have been updated to include the Favorite Apps and the Sessions widgets. Users that have modified their home page will not receive the new layout, and can instead add these widgets by choosing "Customize" from the top right of the home page.

Bug Fixes​

• Real time usage not counted for determining if cost dashboard should show
• Workflow sessions with slug have extra slash appended
• Cannot choose group when creating storage

Enhancements and Features​

Nfs list, attach-storage commands​

• Adds pw nfs ls command to the cli
  • This lists all of the nfs storages on a user's account
• Adds pw cluster attach-storage command to the cli
  • Required Flags: --cluster-uri, --storage-uri, --mount-point
  • This will attach the given storage to the given cluster at the given mountpoint
  • Does the same action as attaching the storage on the cluster definition page
  • The user will be able to see the attached storage on the cluster definition page after running the command sucessfully

nfs ls and cluster attach-storage commands​

You can now use the new pw nfs ls and pw cluster attach-storage commands from an authenticated cluster session.

Sessions home page module​

Sessions are now available as a home page module which can be added using the customize button on the home page.

Bug Fixes​

• Justify sidebar settings to the right

Enhancements and Features​

Add customizable sidebar​

Users can now customize the items that appear on their sidebar. In a future update, organizations will also be able to customize the default sidebars for users in their organization.

Azure OpenAI service available in feature preview​

Can now provision Azure OpenAI resources from within the platform and directly chat via the UI.

Bug Fixes​

• Custom thumbnails not showing
• Cannot expand logs
• Text overlaps on add resource page

Bug Fixes​

• Elastic image dropdown is empty for legacy google clusters

Bug Fixes​

• Marketplace workflows get stuck on loading
• Uploaded thumbnails not showing
• Workflow input substitution not working on session properties

Enhancements and Features​

Promote apps/sessions to GA​

Apps and sessions are now generally available.

Apps provide a layer on top of workflows which make additional interfaces available for workflow developers to make interactive experiences easier. Sessions expose ports on compute resources to the browser so users can run interactive apps on their computing resources and access them directly via ACTIVATE.

Read our documentation for apps and sessions to learn more.

Bug Fixes​

• Long logs line numbers overlap logs

Documentation Changes​

• Add apps and sessions

Enhancements and Features​

Show running workflow steps while session is pending​

On a session's page, current running workflow steps will be shown while the session is pending.

Change default layout for home page​

We've updated the default layout of the home page. If you have not customized your home page, you will automatically be moved to the new default layout which shows:

• favorite workflows
• recent workflow runs
• favorite compute resources

To customize your layout, use the customize button at the top right of the home page. Note that users with a custom layout are not affected by this change.

Bug Fixes​

• Marketplace workflows with dots in name can now create sessions
• External auth UI doesn't fit compactly
• Saving cluster configuration gives an error if storage is attached
• Controller ip substituted incorrectly in workflow inputs
• Clusters can share one static ip address
• Whitespace not showing correctly in changelogs
• Ephemeral storage provision status does not update when persistent storage also attached
• Api key and token generation has slightly different UI

Documentation Changes​

• Document unique naming system

Enhancements and Features​

Update controller configuration for Amazon Linux support​

Support bootstrapping clusters that use the Amazon Linux 2 image

Bug Fixes​

• Unify border style
• Button is invisible on cloud platform

Enhancements and Features​

Allow adding images through platform​

Platform level slurm cluster images can be managed through the admin panel.

Allow setting default session names​

You can now set default session names on workflows:

session:
  mySession:
    prompt-for-name:
      default: "defaultname"

Allow job environment variables on workflows​

Allows setting environment variables on a job level. Environment variables set at a step level will override the environment variables set at a job level.

jobs:
  main:
    env:
      foo: "bar"
    steps:
      - run: echo ${foo} # bar
      - run: echo ${foo} # baz
         env: 
          foo: "baz" # will override env variable set on job level

Stop workflow run on session stop​

Stopping a session will now also stop the workflow run that started the session and any sessions associated with the workflow run.

Improve workflow update-session logs​

Logs and input validation for updating session has been improved.

Bug Fixes​

• Move health check below controller node configuration in provision status
• Cannot delete some old storage sessions
• Sessions not deleting after cancelling workflow run
• Cleanup step running when step is skipped due to if being false
• Show message about user workspace starting on workflows page

Enhancements and Features​

Support client_secret_basic token endpoint auth method​

There is now a dropdown on the OIDC auth method to allow choosing either client_secret_basic or client_secret_post. These auth methods are used for the platform to authenticate to the token endpoint after a successful OIDC user authentication.

Organization admins now can specify scopes for oidc​

Scopes can now be specified when adding or updating an OIDC auth method in organization settings.

Bug Fixes​

• Azure NetApp Files does not work on newly provisioned infrastructures
• Root disk snapshots times out before finishing
• Escape oidc redirect uris
• Validate group names meet constraints
• Random crash on home page
• Workflow inputs.sh has wrong format when using objects
• Workflow cleanup steps not running after canceling
• Workflow sessions not found if contains url params

Other Changes​

• Add docs section to changelogs

Enhancements and Features​

Add health check and storage logs into provision status UI​

• Health check is now moved into provision status list.
• Health check and ephemeral storage failure now also displays a View logs button to see the details of what happened.

Support manually providing oidc endpoints or using issuer to discover​

OIDC endpoints can now be manually provided instead of using the issuer to discover them. This makes the OIDC authentication method more flexible for cases where applications do not have a proper well-known endpoint or the well-known endpoint is behind a firewall but the other endpoints are not.

This update also has slight visual enhancements to the auth method page, with the "configure" button being changed to a link.

Support new provision status UX for Azure NetApp Files​

The new provisioning experience is live for Azure NetApp files.

Bug Fixes​

• Oidc edit page always clears userinfo endpoint
• Incorrect authentication endpoint used in oidc authentication
• Skip building libnss_cache and config nsswitch.conf when present in image

Other Changes​

• Add Sharing a Snapshot to Working With Disk Snapshots

Enhancements and Features​

Allow choosing export when hammerspace has multiple shares​

Adds an input box when attaching filesystems only for Hammerspace. This input allows users to define the export path the cluster will use to mount the hammerspace file share from.

Additional workflow features​

You can now specify remoteHost and slug when updating a session.

      - uses: parallelworks/update-session
        with:
          slug: 'string' // (optional) appends this slug to the session url
          remoteHost: 'string' // (optional) host to forward session to from the target, defaults to "localhost"
          ... other inputs

You can now also specify if the session will use TLS.

sessions:
  mySession: 
    useTLS: true // (optional) Will use https when connecting to session, should only be turned on if the app requires https.

Enhancements and Features​

Improve provision status UI for hammerspace​

Changes the Hammerspace provision status UI to only show the main components getting created, Anvil, DSX, DataNodes. Also adds deletion statuses.

Bug Fixes​

• Cost page crashes
• Remove extra padding on kubernetes pages
• Resource names should not be automatically capitalized
• Parallel workflow jobs not running
• Cannot create oidc auth method in another organization

Other Changes​

• Add quick connect instructions to logging in to controller page

Enhancements and Features​

Add provision status support for hammerspace​

• Add Provision Status UI for Hammerspace
• Fixes issue where the Hammerspace could not be deleted if it didn't have provision status

Bug Fixes​

• Double clicking add terminal maximizes terminal

Enhancements and Features​

Deletion records are now appended to provision records​

When a resource supports the new provisioning experience, you will now see the deletion records directly below the provisioning records in the provisioning status panel.

When provisioning Azure storage accounts, if a name was unavailable the provisioning would silently fail. You will now receive an error that the name is already in use in these cases. This update also fixes other minor issues and typographical problems with the new provisioning UI.

Bug Fixes​

• Non-bash shells cannot run commands
• Azure bucket "collecting variables" step spins forever

Enhancements and Features​

Provision status ui enhancements​

• Provision status UI now displays details of ansible bootstrap task that failed
• Ephemeral lustre filesystem and persistent disk attachment now also displayed, including error if any.

Add failed node to cluster data return endpoint​

Failed nodes are now also returned in cluster data. This is useful for workflow that need to know nodes provision status to make decision instead of waiting for slurm to time out

New provisioning UX promoted to GA​

The new provisioning experience is now generally available for our next-generation cloud clusters and most cloud storage options.

Promote next-gen cloud clusters to general availability​

Next-generation cloud clusters are now generally available. With this update, previous generation clusters will be marked with the text "Legacy".

Workspace mount tooltips​

Workspace mount points now have tooltips for substitutions

Bug Fixes​

• Org vars not populating on workflows

Enhancements and Features​

Ultra disk configuration for hammerspace​

Added inputs on Hammerspace configuration form that show up when selecting UltraSSD_LRS disks. These options are for configuring the IOPS and Mbps Throughput for all disks within the Hammerspace deployment.

Apps feature preview is now available​

All users can now enable the "apps" feature preview from the feature preview menu.

Bug Fixes​

• Run bootstrap when using azure os snapshot
• Some azure instance types cannot start slurm
• Unmount localdisk on hammerspace
• Correct options in fstab for hammerspace

Enhancements and Features​

Dependency graph summary info​

Adds a summary box above the workflow dependency graph

Cli can use tokens to authenticate with PW_API_KEY env variable​

Can use PW_API_KEY environment variable with tokens to authenticate

Identify-platform command​

Adds a command pw auth identify-platform to the CLI to help identify which platform host the CLI is configured to run commands against.

Make azure cluster nodes provisioning more stable​

Make nodes provisioning more stable for azure

Improved changelogs​

Introduced a new structure for the changelogs, where changes are categorized into three sections: Enhancements and Features, Bug Fixes, and Other Changes.

Bug Fixes​

• Cost page crashing
• Compute nodes retry-provision always fails
• Ansible packages installation sometimes fails
• Azure regular image id doesnt work
• Attached disk is not working properly in v2 clusters definition
• Cannot type number that is less than minimum into input
• Filesystem attachment form doesnt work properly when cluster is on