HPC Pack 2016 Update 1

You shall also apply below QFE after installing this Update 1 to include latest fixes:
      KB4135110 (5.1.6114)
      KB4342793 (5.1.6125)

HPC Pack 2016 Update 1 delivers tools, performance and scalability for a highly productive HPC environment, providing an integrated cluster environment featuring the HPC Job Scheduler, Message Passing Interface v2 (MPI2) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) interactive application support, cluster management & monitoring tools.
Below we will list the new features and changes that are available in Microsoft HPC Pack 2016 Update 1, comparing with the HPC Pack 2016 RTM. You can download and install HPC Pack 2016 Update 1 in your on-premises computers, or you can just use the deployment templates to create a cluster on Azure with HPC Pack 2016 Update 1. The new feature documents mentioned below are still under processing for publishing, you can get the document from the preview download page as they still apply.

Removed Dependency on Service Fabric for Single Head node Installation
Service Fabric is not required for single head node cluster installation. But it is still required for 3 head nodes cluster setup.

Azure AD (AAD) integration for SOA Job
In HPC Pack 2016 RTM we added AAD support but only for HPC Batch jobs. Now we added support for HPC SOA jobs. Please refer to doc “step by step using AAD for SOA job”.

Burst to Azure Batch Improvement
In this version, we improved bursting to Azure Batch pools including “Low Priority” VM support and Linux IaaS VM support. For more details please check doc “Burst to Azure Batch with Microsoft HPC Pack 2016 Update 1”.

Use Docker in HPC Pack
HPC Pack is now integrated with Docker. Job users can submit a job requesting a Docker image, and the HPC Job Scheduler will start the task within Docker. Please check this doc “Using docker in HPC Pack” for more details. NVIDIA Docker GPU jobs and cross-Docker MPI jobs are both supported.

Manage Azure Resource Manager(RM) VMs in HPC Pack
One of the advantages of HPC Pack is that it makes it much easier to manage Azure compute resource for cluster administration through node templates. In addition to the Azure Windows PaaS node template and Azure Batch pool template, we now introduce a new type of template: Azure RM VM template. It enables you to add, deploy, remove and manage RM VMs from one central place. For more details please check doc “Burst to Azure IaaS nodes in HPC Pack”

Support Excel 2016
If you’re using Excel Workbook offloading in HPC Pack, the good news for you is that Excel 2016 is supported by default. The way you use Excel Workbook offloading hasn’t been changed. And if you’re using O365, you need to manually active the Excel on all compute nodes.

Improved auto grow-shrink operation log
Originally you had to dig into the management logs to check what was happening to the auto grow shrink operations, which is not very convenient. Now you’re able to read the logs within the HPC Cluster Manager GUI (Resource Management → Operations → AzureOperations). If you have auto grow shrink enabled, you will see one active “Auto grow shrink report” operation every 30 minutes. This operation logs is never archived and instead is purged after 48 hours, which is a different behavior from other operations.
Please note that this feature already exists in HPC Pack 2012 R2 Update 3 with QFE4032368.

Improved Linux Mutual Trust configuration for cluster user’s cross node MPI job
Originally, when cluster user submits cross node MPI job, they need provide key pair XML file through hpccred.exe setcreds /extendeddata. Now this is not required as we will generate a key pair for the user automatically.

Peek output for a running task
Before HPC Pack 2016 Update 1, you’re only able to see the last 5K output from the task if the task hasn’t specified output redirection. And you’re not able to know the output of a running task as well unless you open the task output directly if the task redirected to a file. This situation was worse if your job and task were running in Azure nodes as your client is not able to access the Azure nodes directly. Now if you go to a job view dialog from job manager GUI, by selecting a running task and click “Peek Output” button, we show you the latest 4K output or standard error.
You can also use the command line tool “task view <jobId>.<TaskId> ⁄peekoutput” to get the latest 4K output and standard error from the running task.
Please note that:
1. This feature does not work if your task is running on an Azure batch pool node;
2. Peek output may fail if your task redirected the output to a share that the compute node account cannot access.

Backward Compatibility
In HPC Pack Update 1 we added compatibility with previous versions of HPC Pack. Mainly we support below scenarios:
1. With the new SDK we release with HPC Pack Update 1, you’re able to connect to previous versions (HPC Pack 2012 and HPC Pack 2012 R2) of HPC Pack Cluster and submit⁄manage your batch jobs.
2. You’re able to connect to HPC Pack 2016 Update 1 from previous versions (HPC Pack 2012 and HPC Pack 2012 R2) of the HPC Pack SDK to submit and manage batch jobs. Please note that this only works if your HPC Pack 2016 Update 1 cluster nodes are domain joined.
Please note, SDK from Update 1 will not work for HPC Pack 2016 RTM.
The Preview SDK is available here

SQL Connection String Provider plugin
HPC Pack 2016 Update 1 supports the plugin to provide a customized SQL connection string. This is mainly for managing the SQL connection strings in a separate security system from HPC Pack 2016 Update 1. For example, the connection strings change frequently or it contains secret information that it is improper to save it in windows registry, or the service fabric cluster property store. Please refer to doc “HPC SQL Connection String Plugin” for how to develop and deploy the plugin.

New Set of HPC Pack Scheduler REST API
While we keep the original REST API for backward compatibility, we introduced a new set of REST API for Azure AD integration and added JSON format support. Please refer to doc “New Set of HPC Pack Scheduler API” for more details.
SOA Performance Improvement
HPC SOA performance has been improved in this release.

Prior to installation, please review the 'Microsoft HPC Pack 2016' available on the Windows HPC TechNet site.

Most of the content from HPC Pack 2016 RTM shall apply to HCP Pack 2016 Update 1 unless it is stated in the "What's New in HPC Pack Update 1" doc. Download the 5.1.6086.0'.zip' archive, unlock the file, extract the contents to the root of your drive and run 'setup.exe' to start the HPC Pack installation wizard on a supported Windows Server based computer.