Release notes

The following new features and changes to IBM® Spectrum Symphony are available.

April 2025

02 April 2025

IBM Cloud VPC Flow Logs: IBM Cloud VPC Flow Logs enable the collection, storage, and presentation of information about the Internet Protocol (IP) traffic that is going to and from the network interfaces within your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
Key Management Service (KMS): The KMS in IBM Cloud Private helps to keep the data secure. It integrates with user-owned Hardware Security Modules (HSM). A root key is used for envelope encryption to secure the data encryption keys used inside your applications.
IBM Customer Number (ICN) is not supported: The current solution no longer requires ibm_customer_number(ICN) for entitlement check before deploying the solution for non-production use. The solution is now available for use without ICN validation. Users can provision up to a maximum of 10 static worker nodes for evaluation or non-production use cases. If the number of worker nodes exceeds 10, it becomes the user responsibility to obtain the necessary entitlement check and licensing for those additional nodes in the production environment. For production use or for evaluating greater than 10 worker nodes, the user must purchase the necessary Symphony licenses. To purchase the license, go to Purchasing licenses.
Support for Symphony 7.3.2 fix patches: The IBM Spectrum Symphony version 7.3.2 offering is available for 64-bit Linux x86 and Windows platforms. The patches installed are Build602225, Build602237, Build602244, Build602259, Build602274, Build602300, Build602294, Build602288 and so on.
Support custom image for Bare metal creation: You can now deploy Baremetal cluster using the custom image.
Updated the Spectrum Scale version from 5.2.1.1 to 5.2.2.1: The Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.2.1.1 to 5.2.2.1

November 2024

22 November 2024

File Storage for VPC support: IBM Cloud® File Storage for VPC is a zonal file storage offering that provides NFS-based file storage services. You can create file shares in an availability zone within a region. You can share them with multiple Symphony cluster nodes within the same zone in your region.
File share support for Windows worker nodes using Cloud Object Storage service: Windows worker nodes using Cloud Object Storage (COS) provides a compatible file storage solution that integrates efficiently within the VPC environment, enabling Windows instances to access file shares effectively.
Support for Symphony 7.3.2 fix patches: The IBM Spectrum Symphony version 7.3.2 offering is available for 64-bit Linux x86 and Windows platforms. The patches installed that are: Build601706, Build602082, Build602143, Build602148, Build602149, Build602158, Build602161, Build602162, Build602163, Build602185, Build602225.
Updated the Spectrum Scale version from 5.2.0.1 to 5.2.1.1: The Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.2.0.1 to 5.2.1.1
Updated Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images: Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images were updated to use RHEL 8.10 instead of RHEL 8.8.
Updated Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image: Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image is updated with Build602163, Build602210 fix patches.
Supports Windows operating system versions 2016 and 2022: Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image supports Windows 2016 and Windows 2022 versions.

September 2024

6 September 2024

Support for Symphony 7.3.2 fix patches: The IBM Spectrum Symphony version 7.3.2 offering is available for 64-bit Linux x86 and Windows platforms. The patches installed that are: Build602125, Build602100, Build602094, Build602071, Build602061, Build602068, Build602039.
Updated the Spectrum Scale version from 5.1.9.3 to 5.2.0.1: The Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.1.9.3 to 5.2.0.1.
Updated Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image: Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image is updated with Build602052 fix patch.

June 2024

21 June 2024

Support for Symphony 7.3.2 build601860 fix patch: The IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 Fix 601860 offering is available for 64-bit Linux x86 and Windows platforms. This update addresses security vulnerabilities in IBM Spectrum Symphony and should be installed on top of your existing version 7.3.2 Fix 601711 installation. While it is not mandatory, but applying Fix 601860 is recommended for optimal security. You can also apply other fixes on top of IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 Fix 601711 without applying Fix 601860.

Along with build601860 patch, 16 more patches are updated and they are available in the change log md file.

Updated the Spectrum Scale version from 5.1.9.0 to 5.1.9.3: The Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.1.9.0 to 5.1.9.3.
Updated Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images: Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images are RHEL 8.8.
Updated Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image: Spectrum Symphony Windows worker image was updated to Symphony 7.3.2 and also has Build601860 fix patch.

December 2023

7 December 2023

Support for Symphony 7.3.2 Build601711 fix patch: The IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 Fix 601711 offering available for 64-bit Linux x86 is a mandatory fix that contains various fixes and enhancements, and includes Fix 601349 released in November 2022.
Spectrum Scale version has been updated from 5.1.7.0 to 5.1.9.0: The Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.1.7.0 to 5.1.9.0.
Updated Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images: Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images were updated to use RHEL 8.8 instead of RHEL 8.6.
Update Spectrum Symphony windows worker image: Spectrum Symphony windows worker image to Symphony 7.3.2 and also have Build601711 fix patch.

May 2023

31 May 2023

Spectrum multicluster (SMC) support: The initial release of Spectrum multicluster (SMC), which connects multiple IBM Spectrum Symphony clusters into a federation cluster, is now available. You can use SMC to redirect IBM Spectrum Symphony sessions to nonbusy clusters, deploy and manage service packages, and monitor workload and resources.
Documentation enhancement: Integrating OpenLDAP with IBM Spectrum Symphony: The newly added Integrating OpenLDAP with IBM Spectrum Symphony tutorial walks you through the steps that are involved in configuring IBM Spectrum Symphony to use OpenLDAP as the primary directory service for user authentication.

30 May 2023

Persistent storage type support when using IBM Storage Scale storage: You now have the option to use bare metal servers to deploy persistent storage for Storage Scale storage nodes.
Updated Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images: Spectrum Symphony and Storage Scale custom images were updated to use RHEL 8.6 instead of RHEL 8.4.
Custom image support: Documentation and scripts to make it easier for users to create and use their own custom images for Spectrum Symphony worker and Storage Scale storage nodes are now included in the solution.
Spectrum Symphony version update: Spectrum Symphony product version was updated from 7.3.1 to 7.3.2.
Storage Scale version update: Storage Scale product version was updated from 5.1.5.1 to 5.1.7.0.
Support automated public gateway creation when one is not associated with the subnets of an existing VPC: When you choose to use an existing VPC, the automation associates the public gateway with all the subnets if it is already part of the VPC. If the public gateway is not part of the VPC, then it creates a new public gateway and associates it with all subnets to allow internet access from the cluster nodes.
DNS functionality support: Introduced use of DNS custom resolver for name resolution in place of static hostname to IP address mapping.

February 2023

16 February 2023

Bug fix: Code fixes were applied to address an issue when creating new subnets with custom CIDR in an existing VPC range.

January 2023

27 January 2023

Bare metal server support for worker nodes: You now have the option to use bare metal servers instead of virtual server instances for your cluster worker nodes.
Updated RHEL 8.4 custom images: New RHEL 8.4 custom images that are used for deploying the compute nodes and Storage Scale storage nodes replace images that are provided in the previous release. The new images include several miscellaneous fixes.
Allow CIDR block specification: You now have the option to either accept the default CIDR block or specify the CIDR block for the compute and storage cluster private subnet. This is helpful to avoid overlapping IP addresses, for example, if you are using a hybrid cloud environment.
Added valid Spectrum Symphony license check: The solution now checks for a valid license that is associated with ibm_customer_number, which has been added as a required variable.

October 2022

27 October 2022

Windows® support: You can now deploy Windows® worker nodes in your IBM Spectrum Symphony cluster.

September 2022

23 September 2022

Bug fix: Code fixes were applied to address an issue that was seen in regions where instance storage profiles are not available even though Storage Scale is not selected as the storage option.
Updated RHEL stock image: Updated to use RHEL 8.6 stock image instead of an RHEL 8.2 stock image for the login node and NFS storage node.

August 2022

11 August 2022

Bug fix: Code fixes were applied related to an Ansible version 2.10 upgrade.

June 2022

30 June 2022

Security update and enhancements: This release provides fixes for the Polkit Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability (CVE-2021-4034) and for the Spring Framework Vulnerability (CVE-2022-22965) within the RHEL 8.4 based custom image accessible by the solution. This release also removes the earlier Polkit mitigation that is implemented through changes to the post-provisioning scripts. The RHEL 8.4 custom image replaces the RHEL 8.2 image that was provided in the previous release. In addition, changes in the code now allow creation of compute nodes in the cluster by Host Factory on VPC resource groups other than the default group. And, security group rules have been added to provide more secure access to the cluster by allowing SSH from only specific nodes.

January 2022

28 January 2022

IBM Spectrum Symphony enhancements: You now have the option to use Storage Scale for shared storage that's accessible by the Spectrum Symphony compute nodes. For more information, see Using Storage Scale storage. With the latest changes, RHEL 8.2 custom images take the place of RHEL 7.7 and CentOS 7.7 custom images with included optimizations for NFS. Also, the security vulnerability for Polkit Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability (CVE-2021-4034) has been mitigated with changes to the post-provisioning scripts.

13 January 2022

Security update: A new custom image with an upgraded log4j version (2.17) to mitigate Log4Shell vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) is included in this security update.

December 2021

23 December 2021

Security update: A security update is included in this release that addresses the Log4Shell vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228).

14 December 2021

Dedicated hosts and additional improvements: You now have the option to use dedicated hosts for static worker nodes in addition to having an enhanced ssh_command output and hyperthreading by default. For more information, see Using dedicated hosts. Further improvements include an update of the stock images that are used for login and storage nodes to RHEL 8.2 and clean up of entitlement and location input properties. Parallelism is now supported in Schematics destroy operations to help overall performance, and due to a bug fix, you can now avoid the Terraform warning regarding the interpolation.

October 2021

18 October 2021

Introducing IBM Spectrum Symphony for HPC workloads: You can now use IBM Spectrum Symphony as a workload manager with automated deployment of HPC clusters. The clusters are configured for auto scaling and use the cluster compute node configuration that you select.