01.18.2024 Release Notes

These are the release notes for January 18, 2024

🎁 PREVIEWS 🎁

• Three new Read-Only Connections are now available in Private Preview:
  • Google Analytics - we are introducing an improved version of the Google Analytics connector.
    • The current versions of the Google Analytics API and GA4 Connectors will be deprecated and phased out. We will work with customers to ensure a proper transition plan.
  • Google Ads - access your advertising data efficiently!
  • Scheduled Trigger:
    • This is a utility connection from which you can create Scheduled Trigger Read Connector components.
    • This type of component can trigger downstream components in Ascend, on a schedule!
    • Documentation on this component is coming soon, and feedback is welcome!
  • To request any of these in Private Preview, please contact Ascend Support.

🚀 FEATURES 🚀

• Pre-defined Ascend Cluster Pool Sizes are here!
  • This includes predefined "T-Shirt 👕"-based sizes for Ascend Clusters. Thank you to all our customers who provided input and feedback on this feature.
  • Customers will be able to choose from sizes ranging from 3X-Small to 4X-Large for Ascend Clusters depending on the cloud infrastructure, type & tier of Ascend environment.
    • These sizes are optimized for common use cases and infrastructure sizing, simplifying the selection of an appropriate Ascend Cluster size.
  • Custom cluster sizing is also still available, and this feature does not impact any existing Ascend Clusters already configured by customers.
  • An initial guide has been provided containing things to think about when sizing Ascend Clusters. We'll continue to improve this documentation over time, as it can be a complex topic!

✨ ENHANCEMENTS ✨

• All environments (Gen1/Gen2)
  • Improvements to the Delta Lake Write Connector:
    • Add User Partitioning and Z-Ordering options.
    • Add support for Transactional Updates while writing multiple Ascend Partitions.
  • Observability Billing Dashboard improvements:
    • Cluster Pool vCPU-hour metrics are now available.
    • Data Plane Billing Usage names now include the data plane type for easier identification.
  • Add Filter Expression for connectors powered by CData:
    • Allows the use of a static filter expression which is added to the SQL WHERE clause.
    • We're working on expanding this feature to other relational read connectors in upcoming releases.
  • Credential UI/UX Experience Improvements:
    • When updating a Credential, we now show saved values for non-sensitive fields, while sensitive field values remain hidden.

🔧 BUGFIXES 🔧

• Ascend Cloud
  • Fix a bug in the Ascend OAuth workflow for cloud environments with an Ascend cloud subdomain (e.g. my-env.cloud.ascend.io).
    • This feature is currently available in Private Preview.
• All environments (Gen1/Gen2)
  • Fix the Component Header UI to prevent status information from overlapping text with the buttons.
  • Fix an issue where Spark logs for some partitions were not visible in the UI.
  • Fix the "PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target" error encountered while connecting to SQL Server using Spark 3.4.
• Gen2 environments
  • Fix a bug that caused an error when a Merge transform component had input components with 0 records.
  • Fix case where components could get stuck in "Running" state on Databricks and BigQuery data planes by handling an exception that occurred during internal task batching.
  • Fix a bug that impacted the deprecated Import/Export feature.
    • This feature is deprecated and will be removed in a future release, so customers are encouraged to migrate to the Copy/Paste functionality.