Add blog post for the 1.3.0 release

Change-Id: I59d49aac2d6b2b58cbcce6c2a944051dabef12c8

website/content/blog/2019-12-03_announcing-the-release-of-ara-1.3/index.md

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+---
+author: "David Moreau Simard"
+categories:
+  - news
+tags:
+  - ansible
+date: 2019-12-03
+title: "Announcing the release of ARA Records Ansible 1.3"
+slug: announcing-the-release-of-ara-records-ansible-1.3
+type: post
+---
+
+ARA 1.3.0 has been released !
+
+You can refer to GitHub repository for the
+[changelog](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/releases/tag/1.3.0) as well
+as the [full list of changes](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/compare/1.2.0...1.3.0) since 1.2.
+
+Here are some of the highlights in this new version:
+
+## Required python version
+
+Before ARA 1.3, it was required to run the API server under at least python 3.6
+and above.
+
+We've removed the requirement on python 3.6 by replacing a few
+instances of [python f-strings](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0498/) by
+a compatible string format.
+
+This change will make it easier to run the API server on a wider range of
+operating systems which include python 3.5.
+
+## API improvements for searching, sorting and filtering
+
+1.3 improves on the existing search functionality of the API and makes it
+possible to sort and filter the results of your search.
+
+Let's look at a few practical examples to demonstrate how this might be useful.
+
+Pretend you'd like to search for playbooks that failed in the last 30 days and
+have them ordered with the most recent first, you could construct your query
+like so:
+
+    /api/v1/playbooks?started_after=2019-11-03T09:57:36&status=failed&order=-started
+
+If you want to find out which Ansible tasks took the longest to run, you can
+sort by duration instead:
+
+    /api/v1/tasks?order=duration
+
+Or if you want to see which hosts are failing the most tasks:
+
+    /api/v1/hosts?order=-failed
+
+## Playbook index search
+
+Some of the improvements to the API for this release were implemented in the
+playbook index of the built-in interface:
+
+![playbook-search](playbook-search.png)
+
+We hope to bring similar functionality in the future for searching through
+plays, tasks, results and hosts.
+
+## Database pruning
+
+Depending on your use case, you might not want to keep playbook reports in your
+database forever.
+
+1.3 introduces a new command, [ara-manage prune](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ara-manage.html#ara-manage-prune),
+which takes care of deleting playbooks and all of their resources if they are
+older than a specified amount of days.
+
+For example, the ``ara-manage prune`` command could be set up to run in a cron
+to control the size of your database while keeping the amount of rows to a
+minimum for steady performance.
+
+## Want to try ARA ?
+
+Have a look at the [quickstart](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara#quickstart) or
+read the [installation](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html)
+and [configuration](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ansible-configuration.html)
+documentation for more information.
+
+## Want to contribute, chat or need help ?
+
+ARA could use your help and we can also help you get started.
+Please reach out !
+
+The project community hangs out on [IRC and Slack](https://ara.recordsansible.org/community/).