TDP v3.5.3 Release Notes

Release date: 23 August 2023 (Last updated: 20 March 2024)

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Quality Management

TetraScience is committed to creating quality software. Software is developed and tested by using the ISO 9001-certified TetraScience Quality Management system. This system ensures the quality and reliability of TetraScience software while maintaining data confidentiality and integrity.

What's New

TetraScience has released its next version of the Tetra Data Platform (TDP), version 3.5.3. This release focuses on implementing various security improvements and bug fixes.

New Functionality

New functionality includes features not previously available in the TDP. These features may or may not affect "intended use" for GxP validation purposes.

  • There is no new functionality in this release.

Enhancements

Enhancements are modifications to existing functionality that improve performance or usability, but do not alter the function or intended use of the system.

User Interface Improvements

To help improve usability, the following changes were made to the TDP user interface:

  • A new Get Help section was added to the left navigation menu. It includes links to TetraScience Product Documentation, API Documentation, and information about how to submit a support ticket.
  • The Label & Advanced Filters button on the Search Files page is now at the top of the left search pane. The button provides extended search options and was previously at the bottom of the left search pane.

Bug Fixes

The following bugs are now fixed:

  • An issue that caused broken links in some Intermediate Data Schema (IDS) README files is now resolved.
  • An issue that caused the Removed Sources view on the Search Files page to sometimes display active source folders is now resolved.
  • An issue that caused delays when entering queries into the SQL Search page is now resolved. (Issue #2735)
  • An issue that caused the Health Monitoring dashboard to inaccurately report the health status of Agents based on their disk space usage is now resolved. (Issue #2753)
  • An issue that blocked customers from updating an Agent’s SOURCE TYPE, attributes, and Tetra File-Log Agent configurations when the Agent type is missing is now resolved. (Issue #2730)

Deprecated Features

The following features have been deprecated for this release or are now on a deprecation path:

  • There are no new deprecated features in this release.

For more information about TDP deprecations, see Tetra Product Deprecation Notices.

Known and Possible Issues

The following are known and possible issues for the TDP version 3.5.3 release:

  • If an IDS’s protocol doesn’t have a README file, then the ReadMe tab displays as blank on the IDS Details page for that IDS.

  • There is a very low risk of Amazon Athena SQL queries returning stale, incorrect data, because of multiple Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) file versions being created in rapid succession. This issue can occur when two workflows that are working on the same IDS file run and complete any of the following actions within about 20 seconds of one another:

    • Creating an IDS file
    • Adding, removing, or updating a file’s metadata and tags
    • Updating data in an IDS file

    To avoid this issue, it’s recommended that customers use labels when updating data, instead of metadata and tags. For more information about how to use labels, see Manage and Apply Attributes. (Issue #2837)

  • When editing a user-defined Agent, customers can create a Source Type value that includes unsupported, uppercase letters. The Source Type value doesn’t allow uppercase letters normally.

  • If customers modify an existing collection of search queries by adding a new filter condition from one of the Option modals (Basic, Attributes, Data (IDS) Filters, or RAW EQL), but they don't select the Apply button, the previous, existing query is deleted. To modify the filters for an existing collection, customers must select the Apply button in the Options modal before you update the collection. For more information, see How to Save Collections and Shortcuts.

  • Processing a single file can sometimes run a pipeline more than once. When this happens, one file can run duplicate TDP workflows or send duplicate events to downstream systems. The behavior occurs because Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) standard queues provide at-least-once message delivery, but don’t stop messages from being processed multiple times.

  • On the Pipeline Manager page, pipeline trigger conditions that customers set with a text option must match all of the characters that are entered in the text field. This includes trailing spaces, if there are any.

  • File edit and update operations are not supported on metadata and label names (keys) that include special characters. Metadata, tag, and label values can include special characters, but it’s recommended that customers use the approved special characters only. For more information, see Attributes.

  • The File Details page sometimes displays an Unknown status for workflows that are either in a Pending or Running status. Output files that are generated by intermediate files within a task script sometimes show an Unknown status, too.

  • The latest Connector versions incorrectly log the following errors in Amazon CloudWatch Logs:

    • Error loading organization certificates. Initialization will continue, but untrusted SSL connections will fail.
    • Client is not initialized - certificate array will be empty

    These organization certificate errors have no impact and shouldn’t be logged as errors. A fix for this issue is currently in development and testing, and is scheduled for an upcoming release. There is no workaround to prevent Connectors from producing these log messages. To filter out these errors when viewing logs, customers can apply the following CloudWatch Logs Insights query filters when querying log groups. (Issue #2818)

CloudWatch Logs Insights Query Example for Filtering Organization Certificate Errors

fields @timestamp, @message, @logStream, @log
| filter message != 'Error loading organization certificates. Initialization will continue, but untrusted SSL connections will fail.'
| filter message != 'Client is not initialized - certificate array will be empty'
| sort @timestamp desc
| limit 20
  • When installing a Tetra Hub on a host server that already has an AWS Systems Manager registration key, the Amazon ECS container agent startup fails. An AccessDenied error is then logged in the agent’s Amazon CloudWatch Logs. A fix for this issue is currently in development and testing for a future TDP release. As a workaround, customers can move the existing SSM registration key to a backup location prior to Hub installation, so that the installer won’t detect it. To move an existing SSM registration key to a backup location, run the following command in the host server’s terminal:
mv /var/lib/amazon/ssm/Vault/Store/RegistrationKey 
/var/lib/amazon/ssm/Vault/Store/RegistrationKey-backup-$(date +%s)
  • The Tetra Hub installation script doesn’t detect an existing Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance role on a host server if there is one. If there is an existing AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role, the Hub’s Amazon ECS service will attempt to use it. The Hub’s Amazon ECS instance registration process fails when this happens. A fix for this issue is currently in development and testing for a future TDP v3.6.x patch release. As a workaround, customers can detach the Amazon EC2 IAM role from the Amazon EC2 instance, and then rerun the Hub installation script. For more information, see Detach an IAM role in the AWS documentation.

Security

TetraScience continually monitors and tests the TDP codebase to identify potential security issues. Various security updates were applied to the following areas:

  • Operating systems
  • Third-party libraries

Upgrade Considerations

During the upgrade, there might be a brief downtime when users won't be able to access the TDP user interface and APIs. After the upgrade is complete, customers should check their pipelines for failures or cancellations and reprocess those pipelines if any are found. Customers should also do a smoke test of their configuration settings to make sure that there are no failures.

After the upgrade, the TetraScience team verifies that the platform infrastructure is working as expected through a combination of manual and automated tests. If any failures are detected, the issues are immediately addressed or the release is rolled back.

For more information about the release schedule, including the GxP release schedule and timelines, see the Product Release Schedule.

For more details about the timing of the upgrade, customers should contact their customer success manager.

Other Release Notes

To view other TDP release notes, see Tetra Data Platform (TDP) Release Notes.