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SparkRing 2026.10.3

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@FujitsuPolycom FujitsuPolycom released this 13 Oct 01:22
· 146 commits to main since this release
2026.10.3
a9d0ef6

SparkRing 2026.10.3

SparkRing's profiles run three models created by Local Inference Lab, Inc. and
licensed under the Local Inference Lab License, Version 1.0:
GLM-5.3-Flash-NVFP4-MXFP8-CSF-QAD
(glm53-flash-tp2, glm53-flash-tp4),
GLM-5.3-NVFP4-CSF
(glm53-nvfp4-csf-tp8) and
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-NVFP4-MXFP8-CSF-QAD
(qwen38-flash-next-tp2).

The latest SparkRing release: main, install.sh from main and the
Install Builder install it. It uses
2026.10.2's image unchanged
(ghcr.io/fujitsupolycom/sparkring@sha256:4fffc4dc3074d5539f4e9d3a013ff9ef4e0be570a95b74d4646ee341da1f6911),
so a Spark that holds that image downloads nothing. The
release record
has the evidence and the open gates.

What's in it

  • Faster serving defaults, measured research-only on a ring of eight
    (serving defaults):
    • Qwen keeps its MTP draft's KV cache in BF16 beside the FP8 target cache
      and quantizes its LM head to MXFP8. On two Sparks with the CSF checkpoint
      it decoded 71.4 tok/s at 32K and one stream, temperature 1.
    • GLM-5.3-Flash with the CSF checkpoint runs its prefill with 4-bit
      activations: 11 % faster 32K prefill on four Sparks. The setting,
      B12X_W4A16_A4_PREFILL_MIN_TOKENS=1536, is an on/off switch in this
      image, not a 1,536-token cutoff: short prompts also prefill with 4-bit
      activations, and their output quality is not separately qualified.
      Decode stays W4A16.
    • DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on four Sparks shards its Engram projections: 5.5 %
      more decode steps per second at one stream and 12 % at eight. The owner
      approved it on two starts and correct outputs for eight prompts; no
      log-probability comparison has run.
    • Every profile states --async-scheduling. vLLM already turns it on for
      these models, so it changes nothing.
  • sparkring dashboard: a read-only status page on Node A, port 8090, and
    sparkring dashboard tui for a terminal. The install's Model ready card
    ends with the dashboard's address while its service is enabled.
  • Plans, status, checks and the dashboard name the transport that runs:
    SIRCL, NCCL or RoCEnante (b12x), which --transport prepared selects.
  • --on places the serving image only on the Sparks it names. Models serving
    on the other Sparks get no image write.
  • Automatic recovery restarts a four-Spark model on part of a ring of eight.
  • The installer refuses to start a model whose GPU memory share plus
    SparkCache's pinned host memory leaves a Spark less than 6 GiB for the
    system, and says by how much.
  • qwen38-flash-next-tp2 installs Local Inference Lab's Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
    CSF checkpoint on this release's image (research-only);
    --checkpoint qad-step5500-ple1000 installs step 5500.
  • The enhancement catalog lists Local Inference Lab's launch settings, the
    Qwen CSF checkpoint, the SparkCache layer image and libsircl's copy-relay
    broadcast.
  • Research-only profiles: glm53-nvfp4-csf-tp8, GLM-5.3-NVFP4-CSF on eight
    Sparks, which installs only with --image-lock FILE and is parked, and
    SparkCache variants of the GLM-5.3-Flash profiles, which need an image this
    release does not publish.

Before you upgrade

  • qwen38-flash-next-tp2 without --checkpoint installs the 95.2 GiB CSF
    checkpoint, downloading it when the Sparks lack it, and serves it as
    Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-NVFP4-MXFP8-CSF-QAD-TP2.
    Clients that request Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-NVFP4-QAD-TP2 must change the name,
    or install with --checkpoint qad-step5500-ple1000 to keep step 5500.
  • Installing any profile with this package creates a separate deployment and
    restarts the model.

Profiles

--profile values: qwen38-flash-next-tp2, qwen38-flash-next-tp4,
glm53-flash-tp2, glm53-flash-tp4, glm53-nvfp4-tp8,
mimo-v26-flash-mopd-tp2, mimo-v26-flash-mopd-tp4, deepseek-v41-flash-tp4,
swift15-qwen38-flash-next-tp2 and swift15-qwen38-flash-next-tp4.
qwen38-flash-next-tp4 is the short name of qwen38-flash-next-qad-tp4, and
glm53-flash-tp2 and glm53-flash-tp4 of glm53-flash-nvfp4-spark-tp2 and
glm53-flash-nvfp4-spark-tp4.

Tested

  • On the ring of eight with this image, one start each:
    qwen38-flash-next-tp2 --checkpoint csf loaded, served and answered
    correctly; glm53-nvfp4-csf-tp8 started and served; the SparkCache variant
    on four Sparks passed every step it ran of its test plan's first stage (one
    step and the two-start comparison did not run). The
    dashboard's page, terminal view, loopback address and reload worked.
  • The serving defaults: one start per setting on the ring of eight with GPU
    clocks locked, two for DeepSeek's Engram sharding. deepseek-v41-flash-tp4
    (four Sparks of the ring), glm53-flash-tp2 and qwen38-flash-next-tp2
    (--checkpoint csf, two Sparks each) installed from a package of this
    release with no research options; their run receipts show the measured
    settings, and each served one measurement at temperature 1. DeepSeek on
    eight Sparks started and served once; Engram sharding showed no consistent
    gain there, so that profile keeps it off. The same three also installed on
    two new rings of four, set up as a new four-Spark user would: DeepSeek on
    one ring measured the same as on the ring of eight. qwen38-flash-next-tp4
    installed with both Qwen settings on both rings of four and on half of the
    ring of eight, beside glm53-flash-tp4, and each served one measurement at
    temperature 1. No start with these settings has run for Qwen on eight
    Sparks, Swift-1.5 or MiMo.
  • On the ring of eight: an --on install on two Sparks left the deployments
    beside it serving, and automatic recovery restarted DeepSeek's four-Spark
    group 6 min 47 s after one of its Sparks stopped.
  • CPU checks pass, apart from tests that also fail before these changes.

Known issues

  • 2026.10.2's: installed libsircl deployments report ok: false in
    sparkring check, and libsircl's broadcast is slow.
  • The SparkCache variant on two Sparks made both Sparks unreachable in its
    first start, with larger capture slots than this release gives it. With
    this release's smaller slots, a private record reports one start that
    passed every step it ran of its test plan, including recovery after a
    restart and after SIGKILL; no public record holds it, one step and the
    two-start comparison did not run, and the variant stays research-only.

Try it

On Node A:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FujitsuPolycom/sparkring/2026.10.3/install.sh | bash -s -- --ref 2026.10.3 --package-only
sudo sparkring install --profile PROFILE --plan
sudo sparkring install --profile PROFILE
sudo sparkring check --report ~/sparkring-report

Go back

To 2026.10.2, a pre-release on the same image:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FujitsuPolycom/sparkring/2026.10.2/install.sh | bash -s -- --ref 2026.10.2 --package-only

To 2026.10.1, the latest release before this one, which installs image
dev-20261004-kraken-cuda1342-nccl2323-status034:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FujitsuPolycom/sparkring/2026.10.1/install.sh | bash -s -- --ref 2026.10.1 --package-only
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