Confluent Cloud Release Notes

This page contains the latest release notes for features and updates to Confluent Cloud.

December 20, 2019

SAML/SSO Production Availability

• This feature enables customers to utilize their Identity provider to centrally manage user login information.
• This feature supports all the Identity Providers with SAML 2.0 including: Okta, Ping, OneLogin, Microsoft Active Directory
• This feature is available on AWS, GCP, and Azure across both Confluent Cloud and Confluent Cloud Enterprise.
• For more information, see the documentation.

Confluent Cloud Metrics API Preview

This feature is available for Apache Kafka® clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure. For more information, see Confluent Cloud Metrics API.

December 12, 2019

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud PostgreSQL Source Preview

This feature is launched for your Apache Kafka® clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure. For more information, see PostgreSQL Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud MySQL Source Preview

This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure. For more information, see MySQL Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Kinesis Source Preview

This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS. For more information, see Amazon Kinesis Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.

Other improvements

• The Kafka cluster ID is now shown in the Cluster Settings page. This makes it easier for you to connect clients to your clusters.
• The Clients tab in CLI & Client Configuration page now shows client configurations for 12 different clients, with links to example code for each type of client.

November 15, 2019

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google BigQuery Connector (Sink) Preview

For more information, see Google BigQuery Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.

Connector improvements

• Avro format support has been added to Confluent Cloud Google Cloud Storage Connector and Azure Blob Storage Connector.
• You can increase connect tasks to get a better performance and handle more partitions.

Support plan update

• Support plan downgrades now have certain restrictions in place. When you purchase a support plan, you will retain the support plan and be charged for it for the current and potentially next billing cycle. For more information, see Are there any restrictions on support plan purchases?
• A Confluent Community self-serve offering is now available from the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) marketplace. GCP customers can now use their GCP committed expenditure for Confluent Cloud standard clusters. See the GCP marketplace offering for details.

October 31, 2019

Higher availability with multi-zone clusters

You can now choose between single or multiple availability zones when creating new Confluent Cloud clusters. If you select multiple availability zones, data in the cluster will be spread across multiple cloud availability zones. This provides higher availability in the case of a zonal outage. Prices may differ between single and multiple availability zone configurations. For more details about cloud provider availability zones:

• AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regions_az/#Availability_Zones
• GCP: https://cloud.google.com/docs/geography-and-regions
• Azure: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/availability-zones/az-overview

Use all UI features with VPC-peered clusters

You can now use the Confluent Cloud web UI for KSQL stream processing, topic management, and consumer lag monitoring on VPC peered clusters. You must configure your network to route and proxy the necessary requests between the UI and your cluster. For more details about setting this up, see VPC Peering in Confluent Cloud.

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Connector (Sink) Preview

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Connector (Sink) Preview is launched. For more information, see Azure Blob Storage Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.

September 27, 2019

• Confluent Cloud Schema Registry is now available on Azure and in multiple geographical regions (US, Europe, and APAC).

August 30, 2019

• Confluent Cloud Enterprise is now generally available on Microsoft Azure.
• The Confluent Cloud S3 Connector (Sink) is in Production Availability. For more information, see Amazon S3 Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
• Fully-managed Confluent Cloud GCS Connector (Sink) Preview is launched. For more information, see Google Cloud Storage Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.

August 16, 2019

• Support
  • You can now purchase support for Confluent Cloud through the global menu in the web interface. For plan details and pricing see Confluent Cloud Support.
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
  • With this release, the SLA for Confluent Cloud is updated. An up-time SLA is now available for new clusters created in some regions; the SLA is displayed in the cluster creation UI if it is available. See Confluent Cloud SLA for details.
• Schema Registry
  • Confluent Cloud Schema Registry is now available on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and in multiple geographical regions (US, Europe, and APAC).
  • Confluent Cloud Schema Registry is in GA. To get started, see Configure Confluent Cloud Schema Registry.

August 1, 2019

• VPC peering to multiple customer VPCs
  • You can now peer one Confluent Cloud Enterprise cluster with up to five VPCs within the same region and cloud provider. This lets you connect applications across multiple networks using Confluent Cloud.
• AWS Transit Gateway
  • You can now link a Confluent Cloud Enterprise cluster to an AWS Transit Gateway. Transit Gateway allows transitive routing and supports a variety of AWS networking services, making it possible to connect clients in many networks, both in the cloud and on-premises, to Confluent Cloud.

July 15, 2019

• Microsoft Azure is now available as a cloud provider.

June 25, 2019

• Apache Kafka® 2.3 released. All Confluent Cloud clusters have been automatically upgraded. For more information, see https://www.apache.org/dist/kafka/2.3.0/RELEASE_NOTES.html.

May 29, 2019

• Updated Confluent Cloud CLI with support for ACLs and service accounts launched.

May 13, 2019

• All Confluent Cloud self-serve clusters can now support peak throughput up to 100 MBps write and 100 MBps read, and can store up to 5 TB of data.
• Fully managed KSQL Preview is launched.

May 7, 2019

• Fully managed AWS S3 Sink Connector Preview is launched.

May 1, 2019

• Consumption-based pricing launched for Confluent Cloud.
• Confluent Cloud Professional is now simply called Confluent Cloud. For more information, see https://www.confluent.io/blog/introducing-cloud-native-experience-for-apache-kafka-in-confluent-cloud.

April 5, 2019

• View/Edit Schema in Topic Management launched.

March 26, 2019

• Apache Kafka® 2.2 released. All Confluent Cloud clusters have been automatically upgraded. For more information, see https://www.apache.org/dist/kafka/2.2.0/RELEASE_NOTES.html.

March 13, 2019

• Schema Registry preview launched.

February 27, 2019

• NEW: Topic management UI
  • You can now see the actual topics, configurations, and events on your cluster from the Confluent Cloud web interface. For details, see Manage Topics and Schemas.
• NEW: Consumer lag
  • You can now see how your consumer groups are managing with the traffic on your cluster from the Confluent Cloud web interface. For details, see Monitor Consumer Lag.

Important

These features are not yet available for customers using VPC peering.

January 22, 2019

• In the past, Confluent Cloud allowed users to configure a wide range of topic level configuration parameters. However, some of these parameters aren’t necessary when using a fully managed service. Confluent Cloud now ignores these parameters. Existing users should see no change, as it has been verified that these parameters were never used in practice.
• For consistency, we have removed some configuration parameters that are not adjustable from the describe topics/configuration APIs. These configurations are now read-only.
• The UI has been updated to show you more information with fewer clicks, and to logically group common actions.
  • Now you can see provisioned capacity and usage data for all your clusters on the new Environment Overview page. Usage data was previously available in a dedicated Activity page for each cluster.
  • Many administrative actions and support links are always available by clicking on your name in the upper-right corner. These options were previously available in the left sidebar and in the cluster management UI.
  • This update doesn’t include any new functionality, but it lays the foundation for many upcoming features.
  • The Confluent Cloud Quick Start and related documentation is updated to reflect these changes.