New features and enhancements

Workload contour - Scaling

Scaling can now be performed while the instance is in paused state. For more information, see Scaling.

Recent queries

The Recent queries section has been moved to Query history and now supports up to 500,000 rows, significantly increasing from the previous limit of 2000 rows. For more information, see Queries.

Components

• nzcli version: 0.9.35

New features

Database assistant

Introducing the Netezza Database Assistant chatbot, which is backed by IBM watsonx, a new AI-powered, cutting-edge assistant built on IBM’s decades of expertise managing the world’s most mission-critical data workloads. For more information, see Using the Netezza database assistant.

New features and enhancements

Query cancellation

A feature to cancel long-running queries executed from the query editor. For more information, see Query cancellation.

IdP configuration

The IdP configuration page is now part of the Settings page. For details, see Setting SAML authentication with the Netezza UI and Setting Azure OIDC authentication with the Netezza UI.

Components

• nzcli version: 0.9.24

New features and enhancements

• Updated recent queries page: Gain clearer insights into your queries with the addition of error type visibility for query failures.

  The Recent Queries page now shows queries submitted within the last 15 minutes by default. Queries remain visible for up to 24 hours, with a limit of 2,000 queries.

• Enhanced IdP configuration options: Enhanced the IdP configuration page with dedicated tiles for streamlined management of SAML and OIDC configurations.

  • Now, easily download certificates for signed authentication validation in SAML to simplify your setup and enhance security. For more details, see Configuring Signed Authentication on IdP.
  • Support for signed authentication has been introduced for SAML in NPSaaS, providing robust security for your configurations. For more details, see SAML.

• Introduced the new nzprogress command, allowing you to effortlessly view and track all ongoing plans in progress. See Commands supported by the nz tool.

Fixes

• Time zone handling: Resolved issues related to time zone handling, ensuring consistent and accurate time display across the platform.
• History page fixes: Addressed the problem where auto pause and resume actions for recent entries were not showing on the History page of the web console, enhancing visibility and tracking.
• Scheduled backups update: Fixed the issue preventing the start date and time of scheduled backups from being edited, giving you full control over your backup schedules.

New features and enhancements

• Introduced new feature in AWS network policies for Ingress connections. You can now control which IP addresses are allowed to connect to the NPSaaS database, similar to Azure network policies. For details, see Network policies.
• Introduced JWT token in the Administration -> tools tab, allowing SAML and OIDC users to copy the JWT token from the console after logging in.
• Enhanced platform AWS Administration functionality to include support for lakehouse connections, databases, and schemas on the console.
  • Introduced a new Lakehouse Connections tab in Administration specifically for creating lakehouse connections, databases, and tables.
• Added CRUD operations to the Query Editor for lakehouse tables.
• Enabled SAML and OIDC for AWS and Azure platforms.
• Introduced the Destinations tab in Administration. You can now create buckets concurrently for database backups and Lakehouse datasource.

Fixes

• Only administrators can enable and disable the auto-pause/resume feature. See Auto-pausing and auto-resuming.
• Fixed an issue where differential backup from the Mako system is failing on the Netezza Performance Server while performing a restore.
• Introduced support for partial certificate chain verification in SSL. For more information, see The nzsql command.
• Improved transaction rollback performance by optimizing the handling of large tdj files.
• Improved signal handling for the DBOS process to avoid sessions getting hung in a disconnected state if a query with UDX was abnormally aborted.
• Prevented system restart due to crash when running stored procedures with execute immediate clause.
• Fixed an issue where some views couldn't access the toast data correctly after an OID reset.
• Fixed incorrect query results on tables distributed by char type columns with restrictions.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.3.1
• Web console 4.1.0.0

Known issues

• Issue with date picker in Chromium-Based Browsers: You might experience an issue with the date picker in the console when using the latest versions of Chrome and Edge browser. When a date is selected and the focus is shifted to another input field, the date reverts to its default value.

  Affected versions: Chrome version 127.0.xxxx.xx and Edge version 127.0.xxxx.xx.

  Workaround

  Use Firefox or Safari browser.

  The behavior might vary on different operating systems and browser versions.

• IP address required for OIDC/SAML authentication in private instances: To use OIDC/SAML authentication in a private instance, access the web console via the IP address, not the hostname. To get IP address, see Configuring private endpoints.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.3.0-IF1
• Web console 4.0.3.2

Fixes

• Fixed the incorrect results issue with restrictions on CHAR/VARCHAR/NCHAR/NVARCHAR columns in the following two cases:

  • when a clustered table has an organizing column of one of these types.
  • when a materialized view uses a column of one of these types in its order by clause.

New features and enhancements

• NPS 11.2.3.0 supports SSO (Single sign-on) with multi-factor authentication:
  • SAML
  • OIDC (Azure)
• Introduced nc-start configuration on Azure which provides entry-level configuration for BI and UAT workloads.
• A new checkbox option has been added to the console for deleting backups. When selected this option will also remove the backup from the underlying cloud object store (S3/Azure blob).
• Introduced capability for performing time travel in Iceberg table. For details, see Time travel for Iceberg table.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.3
• Web console 4.0.3.2

New features and enhancements

• AWS IAM user authentication allows you to create and log in to your account using your AWS IAM credentials. This means that you can use your existing AWS access and secret keys to sign in to your account with no additional steps required. Additionally, you can now use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to secure your account even further. For more information, see Setting AWS IAM authentication.

Fixes

• Timezone issues: Fixed the incorrect timezone display issue. By default, all the timestamps are now displayed in database timezone. You can choose between database and local timezone for scheduling automaintenance, BnR and pause/resume job.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.11
• Web console 4.0.3.1

New features and enhancements

• A new Scheduler type column is introduced in the History page for past records.This column indicates whether the respective schedule is ad-hoc or scheduled. For more information, see Checking scaling history.

• Enhanced system stability for smooth operations.

• RHEL8/GCC9 upgrade:
  Version 11.2.2.10 incorporates an upgrade to RHEL8/GCC9.
  GCC9 supports only 64-bit. NPS no longer provides 32-bit client builds.

  GCC9 upgrade has no impact on custom UDX. If you face any issues, contact IBM support.

• INZA:
  python2 and its adapter are no longer supported.

• Netezza client:
  Support to initiate, view, and manipulate schedules for ad hoc, pause, resume, and scaling. Fore more information, see Pausing and resuming instances and Scaling.

• Introduced new maintanence job types Grooms and Genstats under Maintenance section. For more information, see Maintenance.

• Introduced a new option Lakehouse to create databases. For more information, see Create databases.

• CREATE TABLE support for unpartitioned Iceberg table.

• INSERT support for Iceberg table.

Fixes

• .Net login timeout overflow is fixed.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.10
• Web console 4.0.1.7

Known issues

• For expansion failure due to node procurement issues, the Ops team restores the system to online state. You will see the state of Expansion scheduler as Suspended in Workload Patterns -> Scaling section. The Ops team will contact you once the required nodes becomes available. For more information, see Viewing suspended expansion.

• Differential schema level backup might fail with the error message - "Error: Backupset not found in history for specified database and connector." if full schema level backup is performed on some different schema. To overcome this issue, take full schema-level backup of the schemas before performing its differential schema level backup.

New features and enhancements

• New NPSaaS functionalities that are associated with watsonx.data are introduced. For more information, see watsonx.data SQL commands.

  You can also view your data lakehouse objects with the web console.

• Learn how to Run multiple SQL statements in a single session and Run multiple SQL statements in different sessions with the query editor in the web console.

• Updated the algorithm to calculate the profile of the day. The calculation is now made by subtracting two subsequent records' timestamp values if they are of the same day and appending the timedelta to that profile. For each day, the system compares which profile has the maximum time duration and declares that profile to be the profile of the day.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.9

• Web console 4.0.1.6

• JDBC driver (on all platforms) MD5 Auth requests are deprecated. All MD5 connections are dropped.

• OLEDB driver (only on Windows) TLS1.2 protocol is given preference for SSL connections.

• All Windows supported drivers (ODBC & OLEDB) Visual Studio VC++ runtime redistributables are upgraded to 2022.

Known issues

• For issues related to NPSaaS and watsonx.data, see watsonx.data known issues.
• The Word_diff function in the SQL extension toolkit does not support string input.

Fixes

• Updated APIs for IBM cloud secret manager.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.8-IF4
• Web console 4.0.15

Known issues

• The console might not display an abort confirmation when the backup or restore process is aborted and might show that the operation is still in progress. Apply the following workaround on your system to overcome this issue.

  • If backup aborted

    update _t_backup_history set status=2, batchstatus=2 where status=0
    

  • If restore aborted

    update _t_restore_history set status=2, batchstatus=2 where status=0
    

New features and enhancements

• Technology preview support for SELECT operations from Apache Iceberg and Hive tables is available on NPSaaS on AWS. Apache Iceberg is an open table format that helps simplify data processing on large datasets that are stored in data lakes. With Hive table support, you can access Hive tables directly from your NPSaaS instance and perform complex analytics operations by joining the tables with NPSaaS tables. For more information, see Querying data from watsonx.data.

• NPSaaS on AWS is now available in Europe (Frankfurt) region. Other regions where the service is available on AWS include:

  • North America: US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Northern California), and Canada (Central).
  • Asia Pacific: Tokyo, Seoul.

Fixes

• Fixed the issue with SQL query editor where commented out queries separated by a semicolon in the same line get executed.
• Fixed the issue with multiple pause/resume and scaling jobs with the same name get executed.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.8
• Web console 4.0.15

Known issues

• Contour scaling from NC-Start to NC0 with storage utilization higher than 90% might result in errors. Keep storage utilization under 90% or expand storage before you start contour scaling. Ops alerts notifies you about storage utilization.
• The console might not display an abort confirmation when the backup or restore process is aborted and might show that the operation is still in progress. Apply the following workaround on your system to overcome this issue.

  • If backup aborted

    update _t_backup_history set status=2, batchstatus=2 where status=0
    

  • If restore aborted

    update _t_restore_history set status=2, batchstatus=2 where status=0
    

New features and enhancements

• NPSaaS is now enabled on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for US-East-1 region. For more information, see Getting started with Netezza Performance Server and Connecting to Netezza Performance Server.
• On AWS, smart scaling with confidence score and seed models display is now available in NPSaaS web console. For more information, see Smart scaling.
• On AWS, a new entry-level workload contour called NC-Start is available to support lower volume BI and UAT workloads. You can scale this instance to NC0 performance profiles seamlessly as your workload increases. For more information, see Scaling.
• Time travel functionality is supported in NPSaaS web console. For more information, see Getting started with Netezza Performance Server time travel.
• INZA 11.2.28 is supported. For more information, see Netezza Performance Server Analytics 11.2.28 release notes.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.7
• Web console 4.0.14

Known issues

• Databases, schemas, and table names containing a dot character (".") do not show in the time travel statistics and graphs when you set the retention time interval to a nonzero value.

• On demand (ad hoc) backup and restore for multiple large databases at one go is successful for only a few databases in the batch. For the rest of the databases you get an authentication error.

  Workaround:

  • Take a backup of a single large database at a time.
  • Restore a single large database at a time.

New features and enhancements

• Default database maximum connections to the server is now increased to 1000.

Fixes

• Fixed the issue with .pln files not getting stored in $NZ_KIT_LOG/plans directory if your query crashes.
• Fixed the issue with sensitive files from host pod being read by using external tables and remote nzsql client. Starting with this release, you cannot load data into /root and /home directories, so using nzload with datafile from /root and /home is restricted along with creating external tables in these directories.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.6
• Web console 4.0.12

Known issues

• You might experience the paste option not working in Mozilla Firefox 110.x when you are using the query editor in the web console. This is the web browser limitation and you must change the browser configuration preferences to allow the web pages to get access to the clipboard by using JavaScript. This issue is not present in other web browsers.

  Workaround:

  1. Open a new Firefox window.
  2. In the address bar, enter about:config.
  3. Click Accept the Risk and Continue button.
  4. In the Search preference name, type asyncc.
  5. Select dom.events.asyncClipboard.readText and dom.events.testing.asyncClipboard by clicking the toggle icon on the right. The settings change from false to true.
  6. Refresh the web console page.

New features and enhancements

• Use time travel queries to retrieve and analyze historical data without having to develop extra application logic such as history tables. NPSaaS time travel comes in handy when you want to track the history of data changes or reconstruct your data. By using this powerful tool, you can access historical data (data that was changed or deleted) at past points in time or within a past period of time. For more information, see Getting started with time travel.

• The nzbackup and nzrestore destination directory limit is updated. Previously, only 16 directory locations to read/write were supported. Now, the limit is 32.

• The location of postmaster and postgres core dumps is changed.

• Automatic pause and resume is enabled in the web console.

Components

• NPSaaS 11.2.2.5
• Web console 4.0.11

Known issues

If a common table expression or derived table query contains column names or column aliases, which begin with an underscore, Netezza Performance Server deletes these columns in the query result set. If there are no columns to display, Netezza Performance Server returns the following error.

ERROR:  No columns are selected due to column alias begin with underscore

Example:

create table t1 ( c1 int , c2 int);
CREATE TABLE
with tab1 as ( select c1 as _c1 , c2 as _c2 from t1 ) select tab1.* from tab1; ERROR:  No columns are selected due to column alias begin with underscore
select tab1.* from ( select c1 as _c1 , c2 as _c2 from t1 ) as tab1; ERROR:  No columns are selected due to column alias begin with underscore

New features

Use NPSaaS as a data source or data sink. For more information, see Using Netezza Performance Server as a data source and Using Netezza Performance Server as a data sink.

Known issues

datasource is a reserved keyword now. If you want to use datasource as an identifier, enclose it in double quotation marks ("datasource").

Example:

SYSTEM.ADMIN(ADMIN)=> create table t1 ( "datasource" int);
CREATE TABLE

Fixes

• Fixed the issue with queries failing with error No such table exists on a second attempt.
• Fixed the issue with DBOS crashing while redumping modified plan to file.
• Fixed the issue with intermittent hangs.
• Fixed ERROR : unexpected error 12 that occurred when you ran merge queries dynamically through a stored procedure.
• Fixed the issue with memory leaks with stored procedures that occurred after the _ENABLE_SPROC_HIST_LOGGING_ variable was enabled.
• Fixed the issue with postmaster crashing by compiling librest with Go 1.18.

Known issues

• If a large database backup to Azure Blob Storage with a single stream fails, update the number of streams to 16 and retry the backup.

New features

• Two new workload contours NC0 and NC3 are available for a wider range of configuration options for provisioning and scaling.
• Network policies support is added. You can control the set of the IP addresses and hostnames that your NPSaaS database can connect to or can be connected from by using network policies. For more information, see Network policies and Network policies with the web console.

Known issues

• Netezza SQL Editor does not accept input for query requests. You can construct equivalent query requests by using the command line.