Yifan Lin

Enhancements and Features​

Integrate sessions with Kubernetes provider​

Users can now create sessions with the Kubernetes provider, supporting pods, services, and deployments

View provision status from cluster list page​

Cluster provision status can now be opened from cluster list page

Add autoselect option to workflow input forms​

You can now add the autoselect property to a dropdown field when building a workflow. This will make it so the first option is automatically selected.

Bug Fixes​

• On-prem clusters intermittently fail to disconnect
• Workflow with subdomain does not work for marketplace workflow
• Storage deletion logs are missing for some types
• Connecting to an existing cluster which shares home directory with another cluster causes disconnect
• Workflows do not populate default values when running as app
• Workspace mounts shown incorrectly on cluster details page
• Existing cluster reconnect notification did not show correct error

Documentation Changes​

• Update Starting & Stopping Clusters

Enhancements and Features​

Add reason for cluster automated delete request​

Cluster automated delete request now has reason displayed

Add impersonated by to provision status record​

Admin users now can see Impersonated By on resource provision and destroy records

Bug Fixes​

• Add session button disappears
• Responsive search bar on smaller resolutions
• Attached storages panel doesn't include filesystems

Enhancements and Features​

Subdomains for sessions​

Users can now use a custom subdomain when creating a session

Command to list kubernetes clusters available​

The command pw kube ls is now available to list available kubernetes clusters. In addition to basic listing, it also supports output format flags -o json and -o table.

Manually create link type sessions​

You can now manually create sessions of the "link" type. Link sessions are simply links to other applications or services from within the platform. In the past, a workflow would've created these in case a session is managed outside of the ACTIVATE platform.

Provision status enhancement for clusters​

Added more details to cluster provision status records. You can now click on individual provision status lines to see more details.

Can now stop cluster controllers​

When attempting to shut down a cluster you will now be given the option to stop the controller. While stopped, costs will be reduced to only the cluster's storage. When you try to start a stopped cluster, you will be prompted to restart the cluster.

Allow existing clusters to reconnect​

Auto Reconnect option has been added to existing cluster options. If enabled we will try to automatically connect to the remote vm. You must first connect manually by pressing the power button.

Bug Fixes​

• Snapshot name not showing if name is too long
• Unknown error when sharing manual sessions
• Cost estimate table showing empty values
• Cluster image dropdown doesn't filter out failed snapshots
• Unable to update cluster definition when editing via json view
• Can't update azure cluster with controller in NAT mode
• Extra recipients in allocation thresholds are optional
• Delete configuration tooltip says turn off instead of destroy

Documentation Changes​

• Additional updates for new cluster UI
• Remove Dashboard page from the user guide
• Aws ec2 permission is missing register image policy

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

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

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​

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​

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​

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​

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

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​

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​

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​

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