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Introducing Apache Kafka® 3.8

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We are proud to announce the release of Apache Kafka 3.8.0. This release contains many new features and improvements. This blog post will highlight some of the more prominent features. For a full list of changes, be sure to check the release notes.

See the Upgrading to 3.8.0 from any version 0.8.x through 3.7.x section in the documentation for the list of notable changes and detailed upgrade steps.

In a previous release, 3.6, Tiered Storage was released as early access feature. In this release, Tiered Storage now supports clusters configured with multiple log directories (i.e. JBOD feature). This feature still remains as early access.

In the last release, 3.7, KIP-858 was released in early access. Since this version, JBOD in KRaft is no longer considered an early access feature.

Up until now, only the default compression level was used by Apache Kafka. From this version on, a configuration mechanism to specify compression level is included. See KIP-390 for more details.

In the last release, 3.7, KIP-848 The Next Generation of the Consumer Rebalance Protocol was made available as early access. It is now in preview. This version includes numerous bug fixes and the community is encouraged to test and provide feedback. See the preview release notes for more information.

The configuration value offsets.commit.required.acks is deprecated in this version and it will be removed in Kafka 4.0. See KIP-1041 for more details.

Note: ZooKeeper is marked as deprecated since the 3.5.0 release. ZooKeeper is planned to be removed in Apache Kafka 4.0. For more information, please see the documentation for ZooKeeper Deprecation.

Kafka Broker, Controller, Producer, Consumer, and Admin Client

Kafka Streams

  • KIP-813: Shareable State Stores: This KIP adds Shareable State Stores, introducing the ability to use data within a state store across multiple applications without duplicating it on topic level.

  • KIP-924: Customizable task assignment for Streams: This KIP adds a new group of configurable interfaces for plugging custom behavior into the Streams Partition Assignor. This configuration supplants the existing internal task assignor config. Additionally, it limits the scope of these configs to supplying a custom task assignor. This opens the door for future KIPs to add further configs in which a user can set to plug in custom behavior.

  • KIP-989: Improved StateStore Iterator metrics for detecting leaks: This KIP introduces several new metrics to aid users in finding leaked Iterators, as well as identifying the cause of a high number of pinned blocks, or other kinds of memory leaks and performance problems.

Kafka Connect

Summary

Ready to get started with Apache Kafka 3.8.0? Check out all the details in the release notes and download Apache Kafka 3.8.0.

This was a community effort, so thank you to everyone who contributed to this release, including all our users and over 200 contributors:

Aadithya Chandra, Abhijeet Kumar, Abhinav Dixit, Adrian Preston, Afshin Moazami, Ahmed Najiub, Ahmed Sobeh, Akhilesh Chaganti, Almog Gavra, Alok Thatikunta, Alyssa Huang, Anatoly Popov, Andras Katona, Andrew Schofield, Anna Sophie Blee-Goldman, Antoine Pourchet, Anton Agestam, Anton Liauchuk, Anuj Sharma, Apoorv Mittal, Arnout Engelen, Arpit Goyal, Artem Livshits, Ashwin Pankaj, Ayoub Omari, Bruno Cadonna, Calvin Liu, Cameron Redpath, charliecheng630, Cheng-Kai, Zhang, Cheryl Simmons, Chia Chuan Yu, Chia-Ping Tsai, ChickenchickenLove, Chris Egerton, Chris Holland, Christo Lolov, Christopher Webb, Colin P. McCabe, Colt McNealy, cooper.tseng@suse.com, Vedarth Sharma, Crispin Bernier, Daan Gerits, David Arthur, David Jacot, David Mao, dengziming, Divij Vaidya, DL1231, Dmitry Werner, Dongnuo Lyu, Drawxy, Dung Ha, Edoardo Comar, Eduwer Camacaro, Emanuele Sabellico, Erik van Oosten, Eugene Mitskevich, Fan Yang, Federico Valeri, Fiore Mario Vitale, flashmouse, Florin Akermann, Frederik Rouleau, Gantigmaa Selenge, Gaurav Narula, ghostspiders, gongxuanzhang, Greg Harris, Gyeongwon Do, Hailey Ni, Hao Li, Hector Geraldino, highluck, hudeqi, Hy (하이), IBeyondy, Iblis Lin, Igor Soarez, ilyazr, Ismael Juma, Ivan Vaskevych, Ivan Yurchenko, James Faulkner, Jamie Holmes, Jason Gustafson, Jeff Kim, jiangyuan, Jim Galasyn, Jinyong Choi, Joel Hamill, John Doe zh2725284321@gmail.com, John Roesler, John Yu, Johnny Hsu, Jorge Esteban Quilcate Otoya, Josep Prat, José Armando García Sancio, Jun Rao, Justine Olshan, Kalpesh Patel, Kamal Chandraprakash, Ken Huang, Kirk True, Kohei Nozaki, Krishna Agarwal, KrishVora01, Kuan-Po (Cooper) Tseng, Kvicii, Lee Dongjin, Leonardo Silva, Lianet Magrans, LiangliangSui, Linu Shibu, lixinyang, Lokesh Kumar, Loïc GREFFIER, Lucas Brutschy, Lucia Cerchie, Luke Chen, Manikumar Reddy, mannoopj, Manyanda Chitimbo, Mario Pareja, Matthew de Detrich, Matthias Berndt, Matthias J. Sax, Matthias Sax, Max Riedel, Mayank Shekhar Narula, Michael Edgar, Michael Westerby, Mickael Maison, Mike Lloyd, Minha, Jeong, Murali Basani, n.izhikov, Nick Telford, Nikhil Ramakrishnan, Nikolay, Octavian Ciubotaru, Okada Haruki, Omnia G.H Ibrahim, Ori Hoch, Owen Leung, Paolo Patierno, Philip Nee, Phuc-Hong-Tran, PoAn Yang, Proven Provenzano, Qichao Chu, Ramin Gharib, Ritika Reddy, Rittika Adhikari, Rohan, Ron Dagostino, runom, rykovsi, Sagar Rao, Said Boudjelda, sanepal, Sanskar Jhajharia, Satish Duggana, Sean Quah, Sebastian Marsching, Sebastien Viale, Sergio Troiano, Sid Yagnik, Stanislav Kozlovski, Stig Døssing, Sudesh Wasnik, TaiJuWu, TapDang, testn, TingIāu "Ting" Kì, vamossagar12, Vedarth Sharma, Victor van den Hoven, Vikas Balani, Viktor Somogyi-Vass, Vincent Rose, Walker Carlson, wernerdv, Yang Yu, Yash Mayya, yicheny, Yu-Chen Lai, yuz10, Zhifeng Chen, Zihao Lin, Ziming Deng, 谭九鼎

  • Josep Prat is the Open Source Engineering Director at Aiven, and maintainer of several OSS projects, with over fifteen years of experience in Software Engineering.

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