Major Changes
This is a major update to 1.6 capabilities. The enhancements include:
Portal Enhancements
Experiments -> Projects:
- Funding, Community, and Matrix Link Support: You can now add links to your projects’ funding sources, community pages, and matrix chat rooms.
- Public Project List: Unauthenticated users can view a list of public projects, increasing visibility and collaboration opportunities.
Resources:
- Level-2 Data on Site Detail Page: View detailed resource availability per host.
- Time Filter: Filter resources based on future availability.
Slice Builder/Viewer Enhancements:
- Future Lease Start Time: Specify the lease start time for future slice creation.
- FPGA Support: Utilize FPGA resources in your slices.
New Tools and Features
Artifact Manager:
- Location: Available under Experiments -> Artifact Manager
- Functionality: Upload and share your notebooks or papers with other experimenters.
Measurement Metrics:
- Location: Available under Resources -> Measuring and Monitoring Tools
- Includes:
- Public Metrics
- Infrastructure Metrics
- Optical Data
- Latency Monitor
Control Framework/FabLib:
- Advanced Scheduling: Schedule slices in the future using both API and Portal.
- Explicit Route Options: Specify exact network paths for your Network Services.
- Sub Interfaces: Create VLAN-tagged sub-interfaces for Smart NICs, enabling multiple Network Services connections.
- Port Mirroring: Enhanced to support mirroring Basic NICs.
Enhanced Resource Availability
- Granular Resource Information: List hosts within sites to view detailed resource data.
- Specific Time Duration: Check resource availability for specified time periods.
- Validate Slice: Validate your slice before submission to ensure resource feasibility.
- AL2S Interconnect: Provision slices spanning public clouds like Google Cloud, AWS, or Azure. The API now supports interconnecting FABRIC and Public Cloud nodes via AL2S.
- OVS Switches: OVS switches can now be provisioned with Basic NICs – check out an example here.
New OS Images
We’ve added several new OS images to expand your options:
- default_rocky_9
- default_debian_12
- default_fedora_39
- default_fedora_40
- default_freebsd_14_zfs
- default_ubuntu_24
- default_kali (requires disk>=100G)
- attestable_bmv2_v2_ubuntu_20
Packages and Components
Control Framework
| Orchestrator | – Added functionality for users to create VLAN-tagged sub-interfaces for Smart NICs. – Introduced the ability to explicitly define the network path for Network Services. – Enhanced scheduling capabilities to support future slice scheduling. – Enabled port mirroring using Basic NICs. – Various bug fixes and improvements. |
| Site Aggregate Manager | – Enhanced scheduling capabilities to support future slice scheduling. – Various bug fixes and improvements. – Added new images: default_rocky_9, default_debian_12, default_fedora_39, default_fedora_40, default_freebsd_14_zfs, default_ubuntu_24, default_kali, attestable_bmv2_v1_ubuntu_20 |
| Network Aggregate Manager | – Support to explicitly specify the network path for the Network Se- Introduced the ability to explicitly define the network path for Network Services. – Enabled port mirroring using Basic NICs. |
User APIs and libraries
| Fablib API | – Added support for creating VLAN-tagged sub-interfaces for Smart NICs. – Enabled explicit specification of network paths for Network Services. – Introduced advanced scheduling to support future slice scheduling. – Enabled port mirroring using Basic NICs. – Added validation for slices with infeasible requests. – Included support for listing resources by hosts. – Facilitated provisioning slices connecting FABRIC nodes to Public Clouds via AL2S. – Various bug fixes and improvements. |
Portal and System Services
Portal
| Homepage | Add FABRIC metrics of total/ active slice, active users and total project count. | |
| Resources Page | Site Detail Page | – Add level-2 per worker resource availability data; – Support time filter to view future resource data. |
| Measuring and Monitoring Tools | Add links to Public Metrics, Infrastructure Metrics, Optical Data and Latency Monitor. | |
| Experiments Page | Add public project list and public project detail page for unauthenticated users to view. | |
| Project Detail Page | – Add support of funding/ community and matrix information; – Add WYSIWYG editor for project description field; – Update layout and merge Project Owners, Project Members and Long-lived Token Holders in one Project Memberships tab. | |
| Slice Builder/ Viewer | – Add FPGA support; – Support slice request for future allocation, users can specify lease start and end time. | |
| Artifact Manager | Add Artifact Manager tab with link to the independent Artifact Manager app. | |
Core API
| Core-API Projects | – Update project data model to include – type, topics, community and funding information – Update project search across – name/description/uuid, community, type, funding – Allow limited anonymous access to project information – Modify creation to include Slice. Multisite (backfill as needed) – Add basic metrics |
| Core-API Users | – Update user data model to include – receive promotional email flag – Update ansible role based check – Add services-authorization endpoint check – Add basic metrics |
| Core-API | – Other non-user facing fixes / changes / optimizations |
Future enhancements
We expect the following features or limitations to be addressed in upcoming releases (expected release and date indicated):
| New features or known limitations | Expected in release |
| Support for Tofino P4 switches | 1.8, Spring 2025 |
| Ability to manage available compute images | 1.8, Spring 2025 |
Bugs
Please see Forums for discussions of known bugs in this and other releases.