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What's New in HPC Pack 2019 Update 3

This document lists the new features and changes that are available in Microsoft HPC Pack 2019 Update 3.

Operating system and software requirements

HPC Pack 2019 Update 3 has an updated set of requirements for the operating system and other prerequisite software.

Note

HPC Pack 2019 has supported Windows Server 2025 since HPC Pack 2019 Update 3. HPC Pack 2019 has supported Windows Server 2022 since HPC Pack 2019 Update 1. Windows Server 2022 is supported for head node role only with .Net Framework 4.8 cumulative update August 9, 2022-KB5015733 or later applied to all cluster nodes and clients on Windows Server 2022.

Important

Starting from HPC Pack 2019 Update 3, 32-bit installations are no longer available. 32-bit SOA DLLs are still supported.

Enhancements to Job Scheduler

  • Initial support for Kubernetes workloads within HPC Pack

  • Supported head node FQDN from clients on which the head node's host name cannot be resolved - To enable client connection with head node FQDN when the clients cannot resolve the host name of the head node in another domain, please add registry value named EnableClientFQDN with DWORD value 1 under registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HPC on the clients.

  • Configurable job history auto-cleanup options - Support the following configurations for job cleanup.

    • These configurations can be viewed or set by Get-HpcClusterProperty or Set-HpcClusterProperty. Please use the default values unless there is any specific issue or requirement for the job history auto-cleanup.
    SchedulerDeleteOldJobsTotalTimeout // default 14400 seconds
SchedulerDeleteOldJobsDefaultCommandTimeout // default 60 seconds
SchedulerDeleteOldJobRetryInterval // default 15000 milliseconds
SchedulerDeleteOldJobsMaxBatchSize // default 2048 jobs
SchedulerDeleteOldJobsMaxTimeout // default 480 seconds

  • Supported Windows environment configurations for Windows registry settings - To use this feature, just set the environment variable with CCP_CONFIG_ prefix, e.g., CCP_CONFIG_CertificateValidationType.

    • The following set environment command would override the cluster registry CertificateValidationType and bypass the certificate validation.
    set CCP_CONFIG_CertificateValidationType=0

  • Supported jobs packing and tasks spreading on nodes - By default, jobs are spreading on nodes and tasks are packing on nodes.

    • To enable jobs packing on nodes, run the following PowerShell cmdlet and then restart HpcScheduler service on all head nodes.
    Set-HpcClusterProperty -SchedulerEnvFeatureFlags 'JOB_PACKING_ON_NODE'
    • To enable tasks spreading on nodes, run the following PowerShell cmdlet and then restart HpcScheduler service on all head nodes.
    Set-HpcClusterProperty -SchedulerEnvFeatureFlags 'TASK_SPREADING_ON_NODE'

  • Fixed job failure when the cluster property DisableResourceValidation is set to True and the nodes are removed from job's node group - The job would be requeued instead.

  • Fixed runaway tasks under stress

  • Fixed clusrun job stuck when running on Linux node with a leftover named pipe from a failed task

  • Fixed cluster event dispatching issue which caused a scheduler memory leak, job slowness, broker timeouts, and client event loss

  • Fixed task stuck in queued state due to incorrect required core computation when adding tasks after a job is submitted with task dependencies

  • Fixed node allocation order for tasks in a job as default packing by node names

  • Fixed divided by zero exception when viewing job cost due to zero core nodes

  • Fixed the issue that GPU job finished immediately with all tasks in queued state

  • Fixed job failure when all nodes are removed from their node groups when DisableResourceValidation is set to True

  • Fixed a job project name cleanup bug where the SP_DeleteOldJobs stored procedure was not handling null entries in the ProjectId Column properly

  • Replaced an index in the AllocationHistory table to increase deletion performance

  • Linux node support updated for latest Linux distro versions

  • Fixed job stuck in cancelling state due to race condition

  • Fixed node reservation in queue mode when MIN_MAX_ON_NODE feature is enabled

Improvements to Setup and Management

  • Fixes for bursting to Azure IaaS VMs
  • Fixes for bursting to Azure Batch pools
  • Fixed Entra ID service principal creation error
  • Fixed an authentication issue when bursting to IaaS VMs in regional Azure Cloud
  • Updated API versions in Azure node template
  • Supported Node Cool Down Time for auto grow and shrink on Azure - A new auto grow shrink parameter NodeCoolDownTime was added for Azure IaaS VM nodes that failed to grow.
    • You may set it to 100 minutes using the following PowerShell cmdlet. By default it is set to 10 minutes.
    Set-HpcClusterProperty -NodeCoolDownTime 100
  • Support for new Azure IaaS VM SKUs
  • Improved logging integration with Azure Monitor
  • Enhanced Azure deployment using Bicep
  • Inclusion of a Log Viewer GUI tool for easier log analysis
  • Improved logic for handling Service Fabric certificate keys during installation
  • Fixed an issue where service versions in ServiceManifest.xml were not set properly, causing Service Fabric cluster installation failure
  • Security updates for dependent libraries and applications
  • Fixed node stuck in draining state due to divide by zero error when removing the node
  • Fixed Azure shared image version validation

SOA Runtime and Excel

  • .NET 8 SOA service hosts available on Windows compute nodes - To enable .Net 8 SOA service hosts follow the steps below.
    • Download and install the latest .Net 8 Runtime and Asp.Net Core 8 Runtime from here
    • Copy the installed bits to the head node file share, e.g, \\<HeadNode>\reminst, and then run the following clusrun commands on the compute nodes.
    clusrun /nodegroup:ComputeNodes \\<HeadNode>\reminst\dotnet-runtime-8.0.8-win-x64.exe /install /passive /quiet
clusrun /nodegroup:ComputeNodes \\<HeadNode>\reminst\aspnetcore-runtime-8.0.10-win-x64.exe /install /passive /quiet
    • Add or update architecture="NET64" under the service section in the service registraion files to switch from .Net Framework service hosts to .Net service hosts.
    • To change the built-in Echo service for .Net 8 service hosts, just make the following changes in CcpEchoSvc.config file and run EchoClient.exe to try it out.
    <service assembly="%CCP_HOME%Net\NetEchoSvcLib.dll" architecture="NET64" ... >
  • Fixed SOA session stuck with slow progress for short echo requests
  • Fixed OnExit handler exception caused by race conditions under stress
  • Fixed the issue where the create session async call won't be called
  • Fixed the exception thrown when Excel.exe couldn't be found
  • Fixed the registration of the ExcelDriver Type Library (TLB)
  • Support for Excel 2021 in Excel VBA offloading

UI & CMD & SDK

  • Added SDK support for .NET Standard 2.0 - Check the NuGet package here.

  • Added SDK support for Linux. - See here for more information.

  • Fixed the job modify API exception

  • Fixed the connection leak in Store API

  • Fixed the SOA client random crash due to System.InvalidOperationException using .Net SDK

  • Fixed HPC Cluster Manager crashes

  • Supported fast job commands when the previous job Id macro '!!' is not used - To enable fast job commands, just set user environment variable CCP_NO_JOB_ID as True, e.g.,

    setx CCP_NO_JOB_ID true

  • Fixed potential deadlocks when Wait() on ConnectAsync(SchedulerConnectionContext context, CancellationToken token)