Component Versions

Platform:
Cell 3.1

Portal:
Platform Portal 3.1

YellowDog Platform and Portal Feb-2021

New Features and Improvements for the YellowDog Platform

Scheduler Improvements

A number of changes have been made to the Scheduler architecture in order to increase scalability and provide an effective way for users to view and manage large numbers of tasks.

The most significant change is that Tasks are no longer defined within Task Groups. Instead, each Task is now a separate object. Further changes to Tasks and their relationships to other objects include:

• Task dependencies are now set on Task Groups rather than Tasks.
• Task priorities are now set on Task Groups rather than Tasks.
• Tasks are added separately from the Work Requirement. A distinct method call is used to add Tasks to Task Groups.
• Task Groups use a new nested object called TaskSummary to track how many of the group’s Tasks are in each status.
• There have been changes to the fields in Tasks, Task Groups and Run Specifications.
• Tasks have a new status DISCARDED. PENDING Tasks transition to DISCARDED if their Task Group fails or is cancelled.
• Task Groups have a new status FAILING. This indicates that the Task Group will fail but that not all processes associated with that failure (such as updating Task statuses) have completed.

For further information on these changes, please see:

• The Implementation Guide
• The API documents
• The How To guide: Python SDK Changes in 3.1

Support for AWS Cluster Placement Groups

The AWS Source Templates now support provisioning as an AWS Cluster Placement Group. A Cluster Placement Group is a grouping of Instances within a single Availability Zone, allowing for higher throughput and lower latency.

To provision as a Cluster Placement Group, check the Create Cluster Placement Group option when creating or updating the relevant AWS Source Template. This option is available for both AWS On-Demand and AWS Spot.

Fixes for the YellowDog Platform

• The provider-specific Instance statuses Moving (OCI), CreatingImage (OCI) and Repairing (GCE) are now represented in the YellowDog Platform as Unavailable rather than Unknown.

For more information, contact YellowDog.

YellowDog Portal Feb-2021

New Features and Improvements for the YellowDog Portal

Optional Tabular View for Task Groups

It is now possible to view Task Groups in a table, instead of a dependency diagram. The tabular view provides a summary of Task Group details, and is particularly useful when dealing with large numbers of Task Groups. You can use a toggle to switch between the two views. Note that the header of the Task Group section also provides access to a new Task Search feature, described below.

New Task Search Feature

The Task Search facility enables you to filter large numbers of tasks by specific criteria. Click on Search all tasks in the Task Group section header to open a pane of search options.

You can use this pane to filter Tasks by Name, Status, the time they started or finished, and more. When searching by Name or Tag, the search supports Regex syntax, providing the flexibility needed to manage potentially thousands of Tasks.

After searching, the Task Search pane minimises in order to avoid screen clutter, showing only your selected search options. To search again, click on Search all tasks to reopen it.

Deprovisioning Instances

The Portal now supports the deprovisioning feature introduced in the 3.0 release. When terminating an Instance in a Compute Requirement, you can now choose whether to deprovision that instance. If you deprovision an Instance, the Instance Count reduces. Reprovisioning, whether manual using the Reprovision icon or automatic via Maintain Instance Count, will attempt to provision the new, lower number of instances.

Fixes for the YellowDog Portal

• When performing an action that requires confirmation, clicking outside the confirmation dialog does not cancel the action
• When creating a User Attribute with a Range that starts or ends with 0, the 0 does not change to infinity upon saving.
• Various improvements have been made to the overflow behaviour of text and menu options.

For more information, contact YellowDog.