New with Confluent Platform 7.8: Confluent Platform for Apache Flink® (GA), mTLS Identity for RBAC Authorization, and More

At Confluent, we’re committed to building the world's leading data streaming platform that gives you the ability to stream, connect, process, and govern all your data, and makes it available wherever it’s needed, however it’s needed, in real time. 

Today, we're excited to announce the release of Confluent Platform 7.8.

This release builds upon Apache Kafka® 3.8, reinforcing our core capabilities as a data streaming platform. Below are the release highlights, and you can find additional details about the features in the release notes.

New key capabilities:

• Leverage Confluent Platform for Apache Flink (general availability) to easily manage on-prem Flink workloads at any scale while benefiting from expert long-term support from the world’s foremost Kafka and Flink specialists.

• Simplify platform security by enabling RBAC authorization with mTLS identity, scaling RBAC adoption across your on-premise and hybrid workloads.

• Easily browse and search messages across all partitions, even when they are idle, and produce messages with an associated schema and validate input on demand with new enhancements to Confluent Control Center (C3).

Release highlights:

• Confluent Platform for Apache Flink (general availability)

• mTLS identity for RBAC authorization

• Enhancements to Confluent Control Center (C3)

• Additional features and enhancements

• Demo webinar: New with Confluent Platform

Join us on January 29, 2025, for a webinar to explore the latest features in Confluent Platform and a demo of Confluent Platform for Apache Flink.

Confluent Platform for Apache Flink is now available!

We are excited to announce the general availability (GA) of Confluent Platform for Apache Flink, extending expert support to all Confluent Platform customers. With Confluent Platform for Apache Flink, organizations can easily manage on-prem Flink workloads at any scale while benefiting from expert long-term support from the world’s foremost Kafka and Flink specialists.

Our enterprise-grade Flink distribution and control plane enable you to:

• Streamline lifecycle management with simplified deployment and scaling, enhanced automation, and efficient resource allocation.

• Ensure an integrated security model with unified RBAC access controls and consistent security policies across all systems.

• Minimize risk with consolidated Flink and Kafka support and expert guidance from the foremost experts in the data streaming industry.

Now part of the Confluent Platform for Apache Flink, Confluent Manager for Apache Flink (CMF) simplifies large-scale Flink deployment management, enhancing efficiency, reliability, and security for streaming data applications. CMF is a Kubernetes-native tool that streamlines resource handling, enables scalable deployments with Infrastructure as Code, and simplifies Flink job lifecycle management via REST API and CLI support for greater automation. By centralizing management across the Confluent ecosystem, CMF ensures consistent configurations, simplifies security with robust RBAC, authentication, and encryption, and promotes collaboration in multi-tenant environments.

We offer three years of support for each Flink release from its launch, starting with Flink 1.18, 1.19, and 1.20, rather than just the two most recent versions. Our security approach emphasizes continuous vulnerability scanning, quarterly patches, and rapid hotfixes for critical issues, effectively addressing potential threats and ensuring that streaming environments remain secure and resilient.

Finally, migrating existing Flink workloads to our distribution is straightforward, requiring minimal changes to Flink jobs and architecture. This simplifies integration and paves the way for seamless cloud migration. Our supported Flink distribution allows for a gradual transition of on-prem Flink jobs to Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink, ensuring compatibility and minimizing disruptions.

Scale platform security by enabling RBAC authorization with mTLS identity

We’re excited to announce support for RBAC authorization with mutual TLS (mTLS) identity. This feature has been high in demand for customers already leveraging mTLS for authentication today. RBAC authorization on Confluent Platform can now be achieved with identities coming from mTLS certificates or from an OIDC identity provider.

With this enhancement, identities extracted from mTLS authentication can now be used to enforce RBAC authorization directly within the platform. This advancement allows customers to adopt RBAC without compromising their existing mTLS security framework, enabling both service-to-service authentication and granular access control. This is now generally available across all Confluent Platform services and includes supporting mTLS authentication to the Confluent Metadata Service.

Enhancements to Confluent Control Center (C3)

In this release, we're excited to unveil the latest updates to Confluent Control Center (C3), featuring a sleek new user interface and powerful enhancements designed to elevate your Kafka experience.

Easily browse and search messages across all partitions

We’re making it easier and faster than ever for users to search messages and events in the Confluent Platform. Now, you can view messages across multiple partitions and instantly search, view, and sort the last 50-1,000 messages produced to a topic—even when they are idle. This means greater flexibility and efficiency in troubleshooting and monitoring Kafka topics. For a detailed walk-through, check out our guide on Using Message Browser with Confluent Control Center.

Ensure data integrity with schematized message production

We’ve made Kafka message production and consumption smarter. Now, you can add headers to Kafka messages for enriched metadata, serialize a key and value schema, and validate messages on demand to ensure they align with schema requirements both during production and consumption. These capabilities help ensure data consistency and streamline integration workflows. 

Additional features and updates

Additional platform support for Ubuntu & Alma Linux

Confluent Platform is now supported on Ubuntu 22.04 and Alma Linux 8 and 9. Confluent Platform Docker images now use Temurin JDK instead of Zulu JDK. Read more about the operating systems we support.

KRaft mode enhancements

With this release of Confluent Platform, JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) support is now generally available in KRaft mode. Learn how you can migrate from ZooKeeper to KRaft on Confluent Platform.

Confluent for Kubernetes (CFK) updates

Confluent for Kubernetes now supports enabling mTLS with RBAC on new clusters and managing Confluent Platform for Apache Flink environments and applications using custom resources. For the full details on the latest in Confluent for Kubernetes, check out the release notes.

CFK 2.10.0 allows you to deploy and manage Confluent Platform versions from 7.0.x to 7.8.x on Kubernetes versions 1.25 - 1.31 (OpenShift 4.10 - 4.17). For details on installing CFK and Confluent Platform, see Deploy Confluent for Kubernetes and Deploy Confluent Platform Using Confluent for Kubernetes.

CP Ansible updates

With Confluent Platform 7.8 you can run Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform to enable mTLS with RBAC on new clusters, deploy Confluent Platform on Ubuntu 22.04, Alma Linux 8 and 9, and use SCRAM authentication in KRaft-enabled clusters. For the full details on the latest in Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform, check out the release notes. Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform 7.8.0 allows you to deploy Confluent Platform version 7.8.0. It supports Ansible versions 4.x to 8.x and Python versions 3.6 and above. The recommended Ansible versions are 8.x. For more information, see Prerequisites for Installing Confluent Platform with Ansible Playbooks.

Built on Apache Kafka 3.8

Confluent Platform 7.8 is built on Apache Kafka version 3.8. For more details about Apache Kafka 3.8, please read the blog post or check out the release video below with Danica Fine.

Demo webinar: Bringing stream processing with Flink to on-prem and private clouds

Join us on January 29, 2025, for a webinar on the latest features in Confluent Platform and a demo of Confluent Platform for Apache Flink.

What to look forward to in 2025?

In 2024, we introduced an array of exciting features and enhancements to the Confluent Platform, all designed to deliver greater value and functionality. As we look ahead to 2025, our focus remains on delivering greater value and elevating the customer experience even further. We're committed to bringing the best of the data streaming platform on-prem to help you stream, connect, process, and govern your data wherever you need it, however you need it, in real time. We encourage all users to upgrade to the latest version (Confluent Platform 7.8) and take advantage of these cutting-edge capabilities.

Get started today

Download Confluent Platform 7.8 today to get started with the only cloud-native and comprehensive platform for data in motion, built by the original creators of Apache Kafka.

Coming soon: Apache Kafka 4.0 and client version support changes

In preparation for the February 2025 release of Apache Kafka 4.0, we’d like to inform you that in this version, the Apache Kafka community will be removing support for certain legacy clients. Moving forward, clients must be using Apache Kafka 2.1 or newer. Apache Kafka 3.7 (released February 2024) has already marked these legacy API versions as deprecated. Please see KIP-896 for details on the client versions that will be deprecated.

Confluent Platform 8.0, to be released in May 2025, will remove compatibility for these legacy clients. You are welcome to use the full extent of your support plan to remain on supported Confluent Platform versions until you are ready to upgrade to Confluent Platform 8.0. 

We will update documentation and tooling for analyzing logs to help you:

• Identify clients that are using deprecated versions

• Navigate how to update clients to compliant and stable client versions

Our Professional Services team can work with you to migrate from deprecated clients to compliant, stable, and performant clients. In the meantime, please reach out to your account team if you have any questions.

The preceding outlines our general product direction and is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The development, release, timing, and pricing of any features or functionality described may change. Customers should make their purchase decisions based on services, features, and functions that are currently available.

Confluent and associated marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Confluent, Inc.

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