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2026-05-15 — AKS SKU allow-list aligned with sibling repo

Motivation

The dashboard was exposing AKS node SKUs that the sibling elastic-blast-azure CLI does not accept. ElasticBLAST raises

NotImplementedError: Cannot get properties for <sku>

(elastic_blast.azure_traits.get_machine_properties) for any SKU outside its AZURE_HPC_MACHINES allow-list, so picking one of the bad options in the SPA dropdown made BLAST submit fail late, in the cluster, with no useful UI feedback.

The dashboard also defaulted job templates to Standard_D8s_v3 while the sibling default is Standard_E32s_v* — researchers got an under-provisioned 8-vCPU/32-GiB node when they didn't override the SKU.

User-facing change

  • Default cluster SKU is now Standard_E32s_v5 (32 vCPU, 256 GiB RAM, Ice Lake). Same shape as the previous v3 default, with newer CPUs and higher network bandwidth. Existing AKS clusters keep whatever SKU they were created with — only newly-submitted jobs / newly-created clusters see the change.
  • The /api/aks/skus dropdown now lists 31 SKUs from the sibling AZURE_HPC_MACHINES allow-list. Newly surfaced options include the sibling-supported H-series HPC nodes, Standard_E64is_v3, larger Intel L-series nodes (L48/L80), and AMD L-series nodes (L*as_v3). Standard_E16s_v3, Standard_E32s_v3, and Standard_E48s_v3 were removed because they are not in the sibling allow-list.
  • The price table now mirrors sibling AZURE_VM_HOURLY_PRICES for every allowed SKU; Standard_E48bs_v5 was corrected from 3.648 to 3.576.
  • The Cost Estimator dropdown and the Quick-test example were updated accordingly (Standard_D4s_v5 → Standard_D8s_v3, etc.).

Implementation

SKU catalog - single source of truth

  • api/services/aks_skus.py now defines one SKU_CATALOG of SkuCatalogEntry rows. ALLOWED_SKUS, AZURE_VM_HOURLY_USD, list_skus(), and the /api/aks/skus payload are derived from that catalog, so the allow-list and pricing table cannot drift independently. The catalog still mirrors src/elastic_blast/azure_traits.py::AZURE_HPC_MACHINES, AZURE_VM_HOURLY_PRICES, and constants.py::ELB_DFLT_AZURE_MACHINE_TYPE in the sibling repo.
  • SkuSpec now includes hourlyUsd; the frontend no longer needs its own small duplicate pricing table for cluster cost hints.

Backend

  • api/routes/stubs.py: GET /api/aks/skus now delegates response construction to aks_skus.sku_list_response() and returns both default and default_sku alongside the list, so old and new typed clients agree on the default field. Still flagged degraded: true until the Celery task lands — that task will intersect this allow-list with a live Microsoft.Compute/skus query for region availability + quota.
  • api/services/blast_config.py:
  • generate_config() default for cluster.machine-type flipped from Standard_D8s_v3 to aks_skus.DEFAULT_SKU.
  • AZURE_VM_HOURLY_USD is now a re-export of aks_skus.AZURE_VM_HOURLY_USD (kept as a module-level name so legacy legacy/functionapp/routes/blast_tools.py keeps working without edits).

Frontend

  • web/src/components/cards/ClusterCard.tsx: removed the local SKU_INFO pricing table and now uses the shared SKU hook for dropdown options, labels, descriptions, and per-node hourly cost hints.
  • web/src/pages/tools/ToolTabs.tsx: Cost-Estimator dropdown now uses the same shared SKU hook instead of duplicating a stale hard-coded subset; default state remains Standard_E32s_v5.
  • web/src/hooks/useAksSkus.ts: new shared hook for SKU fetching, fallback data, option labels, and short SKU descriptions.
  • web/src/api/endpoints.ts: typed /api/aks/skus response now includes default_sku, degraded, degraded_reason, and catalog-derived hourlyUsd.
  • web/src/pages/BlastSubmit.tsx: fallback machine_type for a cluster with no node_sku flipped from Standard_E16s_v5 to Standard_E32s_v5.
  • web/src/data/labToolExamples.ts: Quick-test example SKU Standard_D4s_v5 → Standard_D8s_v3 (smallest allow-listed general-purpose SKU; MIN_PROCESSORS = 8 in azure_traits.py would reject anything smaller anyway). The production example now uses the default Standard_E32s_v5 instead of E16s_v5.
  • Removed unused web/src/pages/remoteTerminalModel.ts, a retired Remote Terminal VM helper that still carried unsupported VM-size choices. The browser terminal is a sidecar now, so this model should not remain in the active frontend tree.

Sibling repo reference (read-only for this dashboard change)

  • ~/dev/elastic-blast-azure/src/elastic_blast/constants.py still sets ELB_DFLT_AZURE_MACHINE_TYPE = 'Standard_E32s_v5'.
  • ~/dev/elastic-blast-azure/src/elastic_blast/azure_traits.py currently exposes 31 entries in AZURE_HPC_MACHINES and matching prices in AZURE_VM_HOURLY_PRICES; this dashboard mirror now matches both sets.

Validation evidence

  • uv run pytest -q api/tests/test_aks_skus.py → 12 passed. The test file now guards the exact sibling SKU set, default constant, full pricing coverage, representative sibling price values, and the /api/aks/skus default / default_sku / hourlyUsd response contract.
  • Direct AST comparison against the sibling source files:
sibling_skus=31 current_skus=31
missing=[]
extra=[]
price_mismatch=[]
  • uv run pytest -q api/tests → 71 passed.
  • Smoke-test of the live route via FastAPI TestClient:
status=200
default_sku=Standard_E32s_v5
sku_count=31
has_hpc=True
has_l_as=True
  • cd web && npm run build → clean (one informational chunk-size warning, unchanged from before).
  • cd web && npx eslint src/api/endpoints.ts src/hooks/useAksSkus.ts src/components/cards/ClusterCard.tsx src/pages/tools/ToolTabs.tsx src/data/labToolExamples.ts --max-warnings 0 → clean.
  • Active-code stale SKU search now only finds unsupported SKUs inside the negative regression test in api/tests/test_aks_skus.py.
  • Sibling import sanity-check:
default: Standard_E32s_v5
OK: default Standard_E32s_v5 is in allow-list and pricing

Follow-ups (out of scope for this change)

  1. Replace the degraded: true stub for /api/aks/skus with a Celery task that intersects ALLOWED_SKUS with a live Microsoft.Compute/skus query (per-region availability, quota).