Pilot Data Server 9.3.0

Release Date: 2025-06-30

These are the release notes for Pilot Data Server version 9.3.0. This document describes the user-visible changes that have been made to the software since release 9.2.0.

Release Highlights

The major change for this release, is the improvement of Pilot Data Server’s high workload on the database backend, when building the local index for the first time. Also, when changes in the Viz Pilot system was propagated to Pilot Data Server, this would lead to cascading requests to the database.

Warning: Using PDS 9.3.0 with an Oracle backend is not recommended. When deactivating or activating a concept, no changelog item of type "concept" is generated. As a result, only the PDS instance performing the change is aware of it. Therefore, if multiple PDS instances are used, they may become out of sync, since the others are not notified of the change. Consequently, we recommend continuing to use PDS 9.2.1 with Oracle backend.

Note:

  • If a user runs multiple Pilot Data Servers against the same backend, you must run the same version everywhere. Otherwise, after upgrading to version 9.3.0, the other instances of PDS will not gracefully handle changes made by 9.3.0.

  • If you need to downgrade PDS after upgrading to version 9.3.0, delete the cache index folder to allow the previous version to create it.

Note: The change notification system between PDS and the Graphic Hub backend was updated to reduce the number of requests to the GH backend. As a result, when using Viz Pilot Director, the active playlist in Media Sequencer may receive fewer update events than before.

Note: Activation mechanisms are no longer fully compatible between tools. Concepts and templates should be activated/deactivated in the tool intended for their use:

  • Use Template Wizard for Viz Pilot.

  • Use Template Builder for Viz Pilot Edge.

Improvements

  • The local indexing mechanism has been improved (PDS-1294).

  • The default log file size is set to 100MB and default log level is now Info (PDS-1273).

  • Some log messages have more accurate severity level (PDS-1030).

  • Added logging during initial building of the index (PDS-1296).

  • Thumbnail logic changed to reduce requests to Preview Server (PDS-1286).

Fixed Issues

  • In DataServerConfig, the filtering also includes the values (VPE-5895).

  • DataServerConfig should now connect to PDS with proxy setups (VPE-5896).

  • For Graphic Hub backends, the number of parallel requests to the database was reduced (PDS-1292).

Known Issues

  • Data Elements are not visible in Viz Pilot Edge, until the Template Index is ready (VPE-5991).

Note: This version does not automatically generate thumbnails for templates. Thumbnails must be manually generated by the user within Template Builder.

Recommended System Requirements

Pilot Data Server was tested with the following operating system:

  • Windows Server 2022

It should run on any supported Windows Server OS as long as it is supported by Microsoft. 

  • Visual Microsoft C++ 2015 packages.

Note: If the Visual C ++ 2015 Redistributable Package is not installed, some software, such as Director and Media Sequencer, may encounter an HTTP 500 issue when connecting to Pilot Data Server.

As Pilot Database, either of:

  • Graphic Hub 3.9.2 (with Graphic Hub REST 2.9.2)

  • Oracle 19c with schema version 8.9

Recommended versions of other related products: 

  • Viz Pilot 8.9.3

  • Preview Server 4.7.1

  • Template Builder / Viz Pilot Edge 3.3.0

  • Media Sequencer 5.8.0

Authentication Compatibility

Identity Providers

Pilot Data Server uses the OpenID Connect Protocol (OIDC) to authenticate users. It can, in theory, be configured to integrate with any OIDC compliant identity provider.

The following providers have been tested and are supported:

  • Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory)

  • Vizrt SSO (Keycloak)

Existing Vizrt Products

Pilot Data Server authentication can, for now, only be used to add user access to the web applications (Viz Pilot Edge, Template Builder and DataServerConfig).

Some Vizrt products already support SSO solutions, but:

  • NLE plugins do not support Viz Pilot Edge authentication. 

  • Current version of Viz Story (3.3) cannot be configured to use Pilot Data Server authentication. 

  • Although an existing Viz One installation of Vizrt SSO (Keycloak) can be configured as an identity provider for Pilot Data Server, the identity of Pilot Data Server users isn't re-used when clients are connecting to Viz One. The current version of Viz Pilot Edge still uses the pre-authenticated hosts configured in the database settings when connecting to search providers.

Newsroom Systems

Any newsroom system hosting Viz Pilot Edge in a modern, secure browser environment, should be able to utilize authentication. This requires:

Documentation

Documentation for Template Builder is available at the Vizrt Documentation Center, under Viz Pilot Edge:

Support

Support is available at the Vizrt Support Portal.