All Products
Search
Document Center

Platform For AI:Create and manage workstations

Last Updated:Oct 27, 2026

A workstation is the top-level management unit in InferX. After a workstation is created, the system automatically generates a Base URL and API key as the unified entry point for all services in the workstation.

Create a workstation

A workstation is an LLM intelligent routing service bound to a group that shares its name. All services in the workstation belong to that group.

  1. Log in to the PAI console. In the left navigation pane, choose Model Deployment > InferX.

  2. If this is your first time, click Create Workstation on the welcome page.

    If a workstation already exists, click the current workstation name in the upper-right corner and create a new one.
  3. Configure the following parameters:

    Parameter

    Description

    Workstation Name

    Custom name. Use lowercase letters, digits, and underscores. The name must start with a lowercase letter and cannot be changed after creation.

    Resource Type

    Select Public Resource Group (pay-as-you-go, suitable for quick testing) or Resource Quota (pre-purchased resources, suitable for production).

    Deployment Resources

    Resources allocated to the intelligent routing component that receives and forwards requests. Default: 2 replicas, 4 CPU cores, and 8 GB of memory. For production workloads, increase the replica count to improve routing stability.

    Scheduler Resource Configuration

    Resources allocated to the scheduling management component. Default: 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of memory.

    Gateway Selection

    Select Shared Gateway or Dedicated Gateway:

    • Shared Gateway: Free, with no SLA guarantee. Suitable for development and testing.

    • Dedicated Gateway: Requires a paid subscription. Supports public network allowlists, VPC allowlists, and cross-region deployment. Recommended for production. For details, see Use a dedicated gateway.

    VPC Configuration

    Optional. Configure the VPC, vSwitch, and security group for the workstation.

    Note

    A VPC is required when using Redis.

    Redis Configuration

    Optional. When enabled, user data and usage statistics are persisted in Alibaba Cloud Tair (Redis-compatible). Without Redis, data is stored in local memory only and is lost when the service stops. We recommend that you configure Redis for production environments.

    Choose a configuration method based on whether you already have a Redis instance:

    • Create a new Instance: Recommended when you need to create a new instance. The system automatically creates a Tair instance and configures the allowlist.

      After you click Create a Tair instance, the Tair instance creation progress appears. Do not refresh the page during this process. If you refresh the page, go to the Tair console to complete the remaining steps. After creation, the Redis address, Redis username (default: default), and Redis password are displayed. Store this information securely.
    • Select Existing Instance: If you have an existing Tair or Redis instance in your account, select it to avoid creating a duplicate instance and incurring additional costs.

    • Manual Input: The Redis instance and the workstation must be in the same VPC; otherwise, the connection will fail.

  4. Review the total cost at the bottom, then click Create Workstation.

View calling information

After the workstation is created, click Call Information in the upper-right corner to view the Base URL and API key for calling inference services.

  • Base URL: Provides both public and VPC access addresses. The VPC address offers lower latency and incurs no public traffic costs. Use the VPC address when the caller and the workstation are in the same VPC.

  • API Key: Used for request authentication. Include the API key in HTTP request headers as Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>. Click the copy icon to get the full key.

Delete a workstation

Warning

Before deleting the workstation, delete all Inference Service and KV Cache services in the workstation. Deletion cannot be undone. Make sure no important requests are being processed before you proceed.

  1. Click Details in the upper-right corner to open the workstation details panel.

  2. At the bottom of the details panel, click Delete Workstation, then click OK.

Upgrade the engine version

When a new version of the LLM intelligent routing engine is released, you can upgrade in one of the following ways without recreating the workstation.

Method 1: Quick upgrade from the workstation details panel

This method upgrades directly to the latest version without version selection. It is suitable when you only need the latest version and do not need to view release notes.

  1. Click Details in the upper-right corner to open the workstation details panel.

  2. In the Workstation Version area at the bottom of the panel, if the current version is not the latest, an Upgradable tag appears. Click Click here to upgrade.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, click Confirm Upgrade. The upgrade takes about 5 minutes. During this period, your service may be affected. We recommend that you perform the upgrade during off-peak hours.

Method 2: Select a version from the intelligent routing service list

This method allows you to select a target version (upgrade or downgrade) from a version list and view the release notes for each version.

  1. In the left-side navigation pane of InferX, click Service to go to the intelligent routing service list.

  2. Find the target service and click Upgrade Version in the Operation column.

  3. In the version list that appears, view the release notes for each version, select a target version, and then click OK.

LLM intelligent routing engine release notes

The following table describes the changes in each version of the LLM intelligent routing engine.

Version

Changes

v0.5.0

  • Integrated SGLang O&M and full-instance weight hot update APIs.

  • Localized the model selection classifier loop.

  • Added passthrough mode support for reasoning_effort.

  • Fixed Responses/Chat protocol fidelity defects.

v0.4.0

  • Added auto model selection (matches the optimal model by task difficulty).

  • PPD (computes prefill locally on decode instances for short incremental requests in multi-round conversations to reduce latency).

  • More accurate request field validation.

  • Enhanced batch inference.

  • Improved recording and playback, and fixed multiple protocol compatibility issues.

v0.3.0

  • Added inference engine native APIs (/generate for text generation, /tokenize and /detokenize for tokenization).

  • Added optional Anthropic passthrough mode.

  • Improved session affinity, rate limiting, and monitoring capabilities.

  • Architecture-level optimization of prefix cache for significantly improved scheduling performance and memory efficiency.

v0.2.0

  • Added vllm Mooncake PD disaggregated inference backend support.

  • Launched canary routing and dynamic timeout circuit breaker.

  • Expanded monitoring observability (three-layer cache hit rate, session affinity statistics, trend persistence, and report export).

  • Standardized the /api/v1 API.