|Index|Using SUSE AI Factory|Release notes
Applies to SUSE AI Factory

A Release notes

 

A1 Release 2.1.0

 

This release builds on the 2.0.x line with an operator-served application catalog that is now the default, git-backed Rancher catalog support, expanded NVIDIA integration, hardened extension chart delivery, and a range of workload/UI reliability fixes.

A1.1 What’s new

 

A1.1.1 Application catalog

 

  • Operator-served catalog, now the default: The operator serves the application catalog through a static catalog configuration and a CRD lifecycle job, and the UI now loads applications from this bundled catalog by default (useStaticCatalog=true). Runtime discovery from live chart repositories remains available by setting the flag to false #145, #172.

  • NVIDIA AI Enterprise library: The NVIDIA AI Library is populated with NVIDIA AI Enterprise-supported Helm charts, and the default catalog ships the org-level NVIDIA repositories out of the box #155, #172.

  • Application sorting and support labels: The Apps page sorts supported applications first (default) or by name, shows NVIDIA support status through labels, and defaults the library filter to all libraries. The sort control is shared across the Apps, Blueprints, and Workloads screens #155, #172.

  • NGC team repositories: The operator supports NVIDIA NGC team repositories with gated authentication. The default catalog currently ships only the org-level NVIDIA repositories, so team-repository provisioning is dormant until the catalog expands #163.

A1.1.2 Git-backed Rancher catalogs and Rancher API access

 

  • Git-backed ClusterRepo support: Blueprint components and application workloads can now be deployed from git-backed Rancher ClusterRepo resources (spec.gitRepo/spec.gitBranch), including the built-in rancher-charts and rancher-ui-plugins repositories, which previously failed. The operator fetches the chart from the Rancher catalog API on the management cluster and ships it as an embedded Fleet Bundle, so air-gapped downstream clusters deploy without each cluster needing to reach Rancher or hold an API token. Identical reconciles are skipped through a chart fingerprint #156.

  • {*ranchera} API access settings*: A new Settings > Rancher API Access section manages the Rancher catalog credential end to end. Selecting Authorize mints a Rancher API token as the signed-in user, Test validates a token before saving, and the section shows the granted expiry and warns before it lapses. When the token expires, select Authorize again to renew it. The Rancher CA certificate is discovered automatically when none is configured, so TLS verification stays enabled by default. The configuration is hot-reloaded without an operator restart #156.

  • Oversized git charts fail fast: Charts whose unpacked Fleet Bundle would exceed the Kubernetes object-size limit fail terminally with ChartTooLarge and guidance to host them in an OCI or HTTP ClusterRepo instead, rather than retrying indefinitely #156.

A1.1.3 Extension delivery and security

 

  • Authenticated and TLS registries: InstallAIExtension can pull the UI extension chart from authenticated and TLS-enabled registries. The aif-operator Helm chart exposes the corresponding Helm authentication and TLS settings for the bundled extension #162.

  • Registry hardening: A registry-host allowlist guards against confused-deputy requests (with a startup warning when the allowlist is empty), insecure registry TLS is gated behind two explicit opt-ins, plain-HTTP OCI chart pulls are no longer performed, and https+tls chart URLs that are not a direct .tgz are rejected. Terminal reconcile failures now correctly set Ready=False #162.

A1.1.4 Workload and blueprint management

 

  • Pre-flight credential checks: Blueprint credentials are validated before installation, so missing credentials are reported up front instead of surfacing as a failed deployment #148.

  • Clearer failure reporting: Workload failure reasons are shown on the AI Workloads list, and ClusterRepo resolution failures are surfaced on the AIWorkload status #148.

  • Protected bundled blueprints: Deletion of bundled blueprints is rejected by the API, and the delete action is hidden for them in the UI #122.

  • Updated blueprint: The simple-chatbot-with-rag blueprint is updated to version 1.0.2. The default model changes from gemma:2b to qwen2.5:3b (larger context window); qwen2.5:3b is provided for research use only under the Qwen Research License #154.

A1.2 Key fixes

 

  • Rancher and operator index caches are refreshed when the extension version changes, self-healing a stale index cache after an extension upgrade #152.

  • InstallAIExtension status is patched to avoid resourceVersion conflicts #140.

  • The family label is preserved when saving an edited blueprint as a new version #139.

  • Pull-secret namespaces are no longer created on the management cluster for downstream-only workloads #130.

  • The UI clarifies that the blueprint installation namespace is only a default #141.

  • Deployment type cards are aligned to equal height #129.

A1.3 Upgrade notes

 

  • CRD lifecycle on upgrade: The operator chart applies and upgrades its custom resource definitions (CRDs) through a pre-upgrade job (crds.manageWithJob=true), which only creates or updates CRDs and never deletes them. In restricted environments where the job cannot run, set crds.manageWithJob=false and apply the CRDs from the chart’s crds/ directory manually before upgrading #145.

  • Git-backed catalogs require a Rancher token: To deploy from git-backed ClusterRepo resources, authorize a Rancher API token under Settings > Rancher API Access after upgrading. Charts too large to ship as a Fleet Bundle fail with ChartTooLarge; host those in an OCI or HTTP ClusterRepo instead #156.

  • Chatbot default model change: After upgrading simple-chatbot-with-rag to 1.0.2, new chats default to qwen2.5:3b (gemma:2b is removed); existing chats remain readable #154.

Full Changelog: aif-operator-2.0.1…​aif-operator-2.1.0

A2 Release 2.0.1

 

This is the 2.0.1 release of SUSE AI Factory, bringing comprehensive AI workload management capabilities to Rancher.

A2.1 Key improvements and fixes

 

  • Fixed pull secrets not being delivered to certain downstream clusters, which left workloads stuck in ImagePullBackOff. The pull-secret bundle now targets the downstream cluster by the management.cattle.io/cluster-name label instead of clusterName #107.

  • Published simple-chatbot-with-rag and simple-chatbot-with-rag-vllm 1.0.1 with updated image revisions (#132):

    • open-webui: 0.6.41-14.20 to 0.6.41-15.2

    • vllm-openai: 0.19.0 to 0.19.0-5.29

  • Reduced resource requests for the Phi-3-mini-4k-instruct model.

  • Marked the 1.0.0 simple-chatbot-with-rag, simple-chatbot-with-rag-vllm, and suse-inference-endpoint blueprints as deprecated as their 1.0.0 have blocking issues.

Full Changelog: aif-operator-2.0.0…​aif-operator-2.0.1

A3 Release 2.0.0

 

This is the first official release of SUSE AI Factory, bringing comprehensive AI workload management capabilities to Rancher.

SUSE AI Factory is a Rancher UI Extension for managing AI workloads and applications across Kubernetes clusters. This extension provides a unified interface for installing, managing and monitoring AI applications in Rancher-managed clusters.

Note
Note

This extension requires an active SUSE AI Factory subscription to access the application catalog.

A3.1 What’s new

 

A3.1.1 Core features

 
A3.1.1.1 AI workload management
 

  • Multi-cluster AI workload deployment: Deploy and manage AI applications across multiple Rancher-managed Kubernetes clusters from a single interface

  • Blueprint-based application templates: Preconfigured application blueprints for common AI use cases:

    • Simple Chatbot with RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

    • Simple Chatbot with RAG using vLLM

    • NVIDIA RAG Minimal deployment

    • SUSE Inference Endpoint

  • Declarative workload definition: Kubernetes-native Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) for AI workloads, blueprints, and settings

  • GitOps integration: Fleet-based GitOps workflow support for managing AI workload configurations

A3.1.1.2 User interface
 

  • Unified dashboard: Overview page with at-a-glance statistics and recent activity

  • Application catalog: Browse and install AI applications from SUSE AI Factory and NVIDIA AI Library

  • Multi-step installation wizard: Guided workflows for deploying applications and blueprints

  • Application instance management: Monitor and manage deployed AI workloads and their metrics

  • Blueprint management: Create, edit, and manage custom blueprints

  • Settings management: Helm and Git repositories configuration

A3.1.1.3 Operator and backend
 

  • SUSE AI operator: Kubernetes operator managing the lifecycle of AI extensions and workloads

  • Custom resource definitions:

    • AIWorkload: Defines AI application instances

    • Blueprint: Defines reusable application templates

    • InstallAIExtension: Manages UI extension installation

    • Settings: Centralized configuration management

  • Multiple deployment strategies: Helm for simple deployments to local clusters, Fleet integration for GitOps for downstream and multi-cluster deployments

  • Multi-vendor support: Seamless integration with both SUSE and NVIDIA AI components

  • Credential management: Automatic injection of registry credentials and pull secrets

A3.1.1.4 Integration and connectivity
 

  • SUSE application collection integration: Access to curated AI application catalog

  • NVIDIA NGC integration: Direct access to NVIDIA AI applications and models

  • Fleet integration: GitOps-based deployment workflows

  • Multi-cluster support: Deploy to local and downstream Rancher clusters

A3.2 Known issues and behaviors

 

A3.2.1 Installation and deployment

 

  • Fleet must be installed before deploying the AIF operator, the installation of the AIF operator may fail.

  • Standalone UI extension installation through Rancher Extensions interface is not supported. Use the AIF operator default values to install it.

  • Images are distributed via GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io). In the following releases, images will be distributed via the SUSE Registry.

A3.2.2 NVIDIA blueprints

 

  • RAG v2.5.1+: rag-server image version 2.5.1 does not exist in the registry. See #618.

  • RAG v2.5.0+: nv-ingest deployment renders duplicate OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT environment variable, causing Fleet/ArgoCD deployments to fail. See #687.

  • RAG v2.6.0: NIM embedding and reranking charts do not pass model.profiles to NIMCache, causing all profiles (~11) to download instead of the selected one. See #681.

  • RAG v2.5.1+: Service names use hardcoded nvidia-blueprint-rag prefix and ignore nameOverride/fullnameOverride values. See #662.

  • RAG v2.6.0: Critical - NIMs cannot be deployed in air-gapped environments; chart missing spec.storage.pvc.name field to use existing PVC. See #693.

  • AIQ v2.1.0: Chart hardcodes ns-aiq namespace, ignoring release namespace; incompatible with Fleet/ArgoCD. See #290.

  • AIQ v2.1.0+: Local inference configuration requires manual ConfigMap creation; not documented or exposed via Helm values. See #302.

A3.2.3 NVIDIA AI Library

 

  • Not all NVIDIA Helm charts in the catalog are NVIDIA AI Enterprise supported; verify support status at the NGC Helm catalog.

A3.2.4 Blueprint customization

 

  • Bundled blueprints cannot be modified directly during the deployment. Users must create a copy to customize configuration or component versions.

A3.2.5 Deprecations

 

SUSE AI Deployer and SUSE AI Lifecycle Manager are now superseded by SUSE AI Factory. Update as soon as possible.