November 2022

Automation Suite 2022.10

Release date: 14 November 2022

What’s New

New Products and Services

Process Mining and Automation Suite Robots have joined the Automation Suite party. The ecosystem is growing with every new release, with new services constantly being added to the suite.

Service Trials

If you are not sure if an Automation Suite service caters to your needs, you can try it out and see for yourself. We have just added Automation Hub and Insights to the list of services that offer a trial option.

AI Center and Automation Suite Interoperability

You can now connect your AI Center running in Automation Suite to a standalone Orchestrator and Identity Server the same way standalone AI Center worked in previous releases.

ArgoCD SSO Authentication

You can now log into your ArgoCD account using SSO. While username and password authentication continues to be the default option, we encourage you to enjoy a quicker and safer means of interaction with ArgoCD.

New Deployment Assistant

If it's the prospect of complexity that keeps you from installing Automation Suite, you have fewer reasons to worry now as we bring the Deployment Assistant to your aid. The Deployment Assistant provides step-by-step instructions on how to get your environment ready, which requirements you must meet, and which documentation you should read to make sure you do not miss anything.

Unified UI Experience

We have introduced a new tool guiding you through the steps you need to take to complete the Automation Suite installation as well as common post-installation operations. It is called Cluster Administration, and it provides useful instructions on certificate configuration, Kerberos authentication setup, node administration, database maintenance, cluster monitoring, and more.

Improvements

New Admin Experience

Administrators, we have big news for you: The Administration pages have been redone in a new style! While there is no more left rail on these pages, you can now use the App launcher icon to switch between services. We have also improved the UI to clarify the context shift between host-level, organization-level, and tenant-level settings. Rest assured, all your settings are still there.

External Object Storage

We have decoupled objectstore from the cluster nodes in favor of external storage. This translates into the possibility of choosing Azure, AWS, or S3-compatible providers to handle your storage externally. This configuration ensures resilience to data loss when a node and the underlying storage crash or are corrupted. Aside from that, you can perform data replication and disaster recovery independently of Automation Suite.

Ceph on Raw Devices

We have moved the objectstore outside the block storage and directly attached it to the nodes' disk. We have decided to implement this change so that we can reduce the replication factor for storage from 18x to 3x.

Optimized Hardware Requirements

We have optimized the per-node requirements for minimum processor and RAM . You now need 8 (v-)CPU/cores and 16 GiB of RAM per node to install Automation Suite in multi-node HA-ready production mode.

Improved Backup and Restore

We have simplified the backup and restore strategy. Capture the snapshot at any point in time using the on-demand snapshot command or set up a schedule to do it for you.

Zero Downtime Cumulative Updates

Whenever possible, you can move from a 2022.10.x minor version to another without worrying about downtime. Generally, Cumulative Updates (CUs) no longer require upgrading the entire infrastructure and the shared suite platform layer.