Apache Kafka 3.4 - New Features & Improvements

Apache Kafka® 3.4 is released! In this special episode, Danica Fine (Senior Developer Advocate, Confluent), shares highlights of the Apache Kafka 3.4 release. This release introduces new KIPs in Kafka Core, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect.

In Kafka Core:

• KIP-792 expands the metadata each group member passes to the group leader in its JoinGroup subscription to include the highest stable generation that consumer was a part of. 
• KIP-830 includes a new configuration setting that allows you to disable the JMX reporter for environments where it’s not being used. 
• KIP-854 introduces changes to clean up producer IDs more efficiently, to avoid excess memory usage. It introduces a new timeout parameter that affects the expiry of producer IDs and updates the old parameter to only affect the expiry of transaction IDs.
• KIP-866 (early access) provides a bridge to migrate between existing Zookeeper clusters to new KRaft mode clusters, enabling the migration of existing metadata from Zookeeper to KRaft. 
• KIP-876 adds a new property that defines the maximum amount of time that the server will wait to generate a snapshot; the default is 1 hour.
• KIP-881, an extension of KIP-392, makes it so that consumers can now be rack-aware when it comes to partition assignments and consumer rebalancing. 

In Kafka Streams:

• KIP-770 updates some Kafka Streams configs and metrics related to the record cache size.
• KIP-837 allows users to multicast result records to every partition of downstream sink topics and adds functionality for users to choose to drop result records without sending.

And finally, for Kafka Connect:

• KIP-787 allows users to run MirrorMaker2 with custom implementations for the Kafka resource manager and makes it easier to integrate with your ecosystem.

Tune in to learn more about the Apache Kafka 3.4 release!

EPISODE LINKS

• See release notes for Apache Kafka 3.4
• Read the blog to learn more
• Download Apache Kafka 3.4 and get started
• Watch the video version of this podcast
• Join the Community