December 22, 2023

BETA CAE Systems announces the release of
SPDRM v1.11.0

About this Release

BETA CAE Systems announces the release of SPDRM v1.11.0.

SPDRM v1.11.0 is now available, with numerous important enhancements in both the back-end and in the SPDRM client.

Contents

Release Highlights
Documentation Updates
Supported platforms and System Requirements
Download

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Release Highlights

In the Data Management area, this version offers the required back-end functionality to support archival and retrieval of metadata. With metadata archival, the "noise" while navigating active project data is reduced and the performance of querying for live data is improved. This new development is coupled with the existing functionality for archiving on file level (i.e. remove/retrieve attachments). More specifically, files associated to data objects marked for archival are asynchronously moved to archive vault storage.

Continuing in the Process Management area, this version introduces the "Error " state for process nodes. A node is automatically switched to error state in case of failures in execution (e.g. exception during the script execution of a script node, or invalid path of application during the execution of a registered application node), or if script function scriptCommands.abort() is called.

Taking into consideration the fact that in multi-site SPDRM installations different sites need to access the same application under different paths and probably with different command line options, this version introduces support for per-site configuration under a single Registered Application.

In addition, the Users Management section of the SPDRM Administration Page was further enriched in this version. Apart from bug fixes and improvements in performance and UI/UX, this version introduces the following additional functionality:

• Import users from LDAP
• Import users from a Unix passwd file
• Import users and roles from a JSON file
• Export users and roles to a JSON file
• Manage tools access per role
• Send e-mail to users, or roles
• Close selected active user sessions

Furthermore, this version introduces robust password encryption mechanisms using Jasypt and vault encryption for safeguarding sensitive credentials within configuration files. This development ensures that passwords that used to be stored as plain text in configuration files of SPDRM, RIOC, and BAL servers are now encrypted, enhancing overall system security, since it significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches. Encrypted passwords are securely decrypted during service startup, keeping only the decrypted values in memory for internal operations, enhancing data protection. Moreover, the SPDRM Admin web console provides a seamless option to enable/disable password encryption for services, ensuring ease of management and security control.

An additional security enhancement, that applies to multi-site SPDRM installations, is introduced, that relates to the security of the communication between the SPDRM server and the RIOC server has taken place. This version offers the upgrade from an SSL/TLS channel of communication to a token-based authentication, adding an extra layer of security. Guided by Defense-in-Depth, this implementation focuses on enhanced authentication verifying both the origin and destination of requests. The benefits of this enhancement include the mitigation against certain types of attacks like Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) or session hijacking. And all this, with zero impact on performance.

Towards the Continuous Delivery method, SPDRM Updater has been refactored to facilitate the need for rapid and reliable delivery of code changes (bug fixes, improvements and new features) to the customers. The new Updater ensures that software is deployable at any time, overcoming the current limitation that made the Updater usable only on systems running on a previous official version, moving to a newer official version. Now updates are possible from an official version to a pre-release, from a pre-release to an official version, or from one pre-release to another. This will be effective from SPDRM v1.11.0 onward.

From now on, MySQL version 8.0 is officially supported. MySQL 8.0 has important performance and security improvements and, on the other hand, the widely used MySQL version 5.7 reached end-of-life (EOL) status in October 2023.

 

For more details about the new software features, enhancements and corrections please, refer to the Release Notes document.

 

Documentation Updates

Updated Documents

Updated Installation Guide, Administrator's Guide, User's Guide, Data Management Reference Manual, Scripting API Guide and REST API documentation.

 

Supported Platforms and System Requirements

The server software of SPDRM is running under 64bit flavors of Linux.

The client application of SPDRM is running under 64bit flavours of Linux and MS Windows.

The software requires a different license key to the rest of the products of BETA CAE Systems. This license key should be incorporated into the same license file, if such is already installed, and requires beta_lm, the proprietary license manager of BETA CAE Systems.

For details, refer to the System Requirements document.

 

Download

Where to download from

Customers who are served directly by BETA CAE Systems, or its subsidiaries, may download the new software and documentation from their account on our server. They can access their account through the "sign in" link at our web site.
Contact us if you miss your account details. The Downloads menu items give you access to the public downloads.
Customers who are served by a local business agent should contact the local support channel for software distribution details.

What to download

All files required for the installation of this version reside in the folder named: "SPDRM_v1.11.0" and are dated as of December 22, 2023.

These files should replace any pre-releases or other files downloaded prior to that date.

The distribution of this version of SPDRM is packaged in one, single, unified installation file that invokes the respective installer and guides the procedure for the installation of the required components (i.e. SPDRM server and client).

Earlier software releases are also available in the sub-directory called "Previous_Versions" or in a folder named after the product and version number.