Pilot Data Server 9.5.0

Release Date: 2026-04-23

These are the release notes for Pilot Data Server version 9.5.0. This document describes the user-visible changes that have been made to the software since release 9.4.0.

New Features

  • Pilot Data Server now includes an audit feature that logs all write operations. This includes creating and updating templates and data elements (PDS-1383).

  • The Launcher now includes an Audit Viewer for reviewing the audit log directly from the Launcher UI (PDS-1383).

  • The Launcher now has a Status tab that shows the current operational status of PDS, such as database connection status and whether the indexing is ready or being built. A Log tab with live log output and auto-scroll has also been added (PDS-1386).

  • There is now a Reset Index button to support index rebuild operations from the Launcher UI (PDS-1390).

  • Added support for ChangeServerReportAddress in the STOMP monitor link configuration (PDS-1398).

Improvements

  • Crop Service has been significantly improved for better performance and scalability. Processing is now asynchronous and images are cached in memory. Configuration has been moved to an INI file managed through the Pilot Data Server Launcher UI. A /health endpoint was added to monitor service availability (PDS-1394).

  • If Pilot Data Server is not running at service startup, Crop Service retries loading VCP parameters and pre-authenticated hosts, instead of failing permanently (PDS-1391).

  • Improved indexing performance to reduce rebuild times in larger environments (PDS-1374).

  • Indexing can now be disabled for Oracle-based deployments to reduce unnecessary index processing where it is not needed (PDS-1340).

  • Logging settings can now be read from the INI file to simplify configuration and deployment management (PDS-1387).

  • Exception logging has been reduced to lower log noise and improve troubleshooting clarity (PDS-1388).

  • Allocated licenses and expiration dates are written in the log file on startup (PDS-1402).

Fixed Issues

  • Fixed an issue where Pilot Data Server would stop when the maximum log file size was reached (PDS-1395).

  • Legacy VBScript (.vbs) script units are no longer included in the script units list when serving templates. This prevents issues when legacy templates containing VBScript are loaded in Template Builder or Viz Pilot Edge (PDS-1389).

  • Model links generated from external IDs now correctly escape special characters (PDS-1366).

  • An obsolete CodeMeter link has been updated to remove a stale licensing reference (PDS-1397).

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.

System Requirements

System

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (64-bit)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022 (64-bit)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2025 (64-bit)

The above operating systems are also supported as virtual machines on VMware ESXi 7.0 or higher.

CPU

8 cores with a base frequency of 2.4 GHz or higher

RAM

  • 8 GB RAM minimum

  • 16 GB RAM recommended

Disk

40 GB free disk space for application and logs.

Additional

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.

System Requirements (Crop Service)

System

64-bit Windows Server 2019 or newer

CPU

  • Minimum 2 CPU cores and 4 GB RAM

  • Recommended 4 CPU cores and 8-16 GB RAM

Disk

5 GB free disk space

Recommended Software Requirements

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 8.9.4

  • Preview Server 4.7.1

  • Template Builder / Viz Pilot Edge 3.5.0

  • Media Sequencer 5.8.1

Note: The minimum requirement for Update Service, is Media Sequencer 5.7.

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:

  • Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory)

  • Vizrt SSO (Keycloak)

  • Okta

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:

  • 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.