Confluent Cloud Release Notes

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

July 14, 2020

Support for Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) on AWS dedicated clusters
  • New dedicated clusters only.
  • Supports AWS Key Management Service (KMS) only.
  • Support for automatic key rotation. No support for manual key rotation.

For more information, see Creating Encrypted Confluent Cloud Clusters Using Your Own Key.

June 25, 2020

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Event Hubs Source GA
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, Azure, or GCP. For more information, see Azure Event Hubs Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Snowflake Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, Azure, or GCP. For more information, see Snowflake Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Elasticsearch Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, Azure, or GCP. For more information, see Elasticsearch Service Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Amazon S3 Sink Improvements
Additional properties to support building a time-based directory structure for data stored in S3. For more information, see Amazon S3 Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Hard-delete schemas in Schema Registry
The Schema Registry API now supports permanent schema deletes with ?permanent=true on the HTTP DELETE call.
Support for schema references for Avro and JSON Schema in Schema Registry
Avro and JSON Schema can now make references to external schemas and evolve those independently (Protobuf already supports references). Schema references are a means of modularizing a schema and its dependencies.
Functionality from ksqlDB 0.9.0 and 0.10.0 is now available in Confluent Cloud

June 18, 2020

Annual Commitment Users on GCP Can Provision Dedicated Clusters with VPC Peering
Customers with annual commitments on usage-based billing plans can now provision new dedicated clusters on Google Cloud Platform with VPC Peering through the Confluent Cloud UI. For more information, see Networking in Confluent Cloud for GCP.

June 10, 2020

Data flow
Data flow is now GA. This feature provides a visual representation of the data flow paths (edges) between producers, topics, and consumers within a cluster. For more information see Data Flow.
GCP Marketplace Commits
Google Cloud Platform customers can now sign up for Confluent Cloud annual commitments using the GCP marketplace and utilize their GCP commit towards usage-based consumption of Confluent Cloud. For more information, see Get Started with Confluent Cloud on the GCP Marketplace with Commitments.

June 5, 2020

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Kinesis Source GA
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS. For more information, see Amazon Kinesis Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Annual Commitment Users on AWS Can Provision Dedicated Clusters with VPC Peering
Customers with annual commitments on usage-based billing plans can now provision new dedicated clusters on Amazon Web Services with VPC Peering through the Confluent Cloud UI. For more information, see Configure a Confluent Cloud Network Peering Connection for AWS.

May 27, 2020

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google BigQuery Sink GA
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Google Cloud Platform. For more information, see Google BigQuery Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google Cloud Pub/Sub Source GA
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. For more information, see Google Pub/Sub Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud MongoDB Source Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. For more information, see MongoDB Atlas Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud MongoDB Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. For more information, see MongoDB Atlas Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Confluent Cloud Metrics API
Confluent Cloud Metrics API now serves metrics for records sent and received for clusters, topics, and partitions along with cluster level partition count. For more information, see Confluent Cloud Metrics API.

May 14, 2020

Cluster Level Metrics in the Confluent Cloud UI
View your time-series graphs of your Apache Kafka® cluster usage. This includes your ingress, egress, storage, and partition count to allow you to monitor your usage over time.
Annual Commitment Users Can Expand Dedicated Clusters
Customers with annual commitments on usage-based billing plans can now expand their dedicated clusters through the Confluent Cloud UI. For more information, see Expand a Dedicated Kafka Cluster in Confluent Cloud.

April 23, 2020

Usage-based billing with commits
Usage-based billing with commits is now available for customers on the Azure Marketplace. You can now commit a spend, get a discount, and transact through the Azure Marketplace to get started with Confluent Cloud. For more information, see Get Started with Confluent Cloud on the Azure Marketplace with Commitments.
Support for Protocol Buffers and JSON Schema in Confluent Cloud
Support for Protocol Buffers and JSON Schema has been added in Schema Registry and throughout Confluent Cloud, including ksqlDB, Kafka Streams and Kafka Clients. For more information, see Avro, JSON, and Protobuf Supported Formats and Extensibility.
Confluent Cloud CLI General Availability

The Confluent Cloud CLI has been promoted to general availability with features that now enable use in a scripted environment:

  • Machine readable JSON or YAML output through the -o flag on commands with return values.
  • Long-lived authentication through ccloud login --save.

For more information, see Confluent Cloud CLI Command Reference.

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google Cloud Spanner Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Google Cloud Platform. For more information, see Google Cloud Spanner Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google Cloud Dataproc Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Google Cloud Platform. For more information, see Google Cloud Dataproc Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Event Hubs Source Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. For more information, see Azure Event Hubs Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Microsoft Azure. For more information, see Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Amazon Redshift Sink Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in Amazon Web Services. For more information, see Amazon Redshift Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.

April 6, 2020

Confluent Cloud Cluster Tiers: Basic, Standard, Dedicated

Confluent Cloud now offers three cluster tiers: Basic, Standard, and Dedicated.

  • Basic clusters are billed for ingress, egress, and storage.
  • Standard clusters are billed an hourly base price of $1.50 USD per hour, in addition to usage-based charges.
  • Dedicated clusters are available for customers with annual commitments, which you can purchase from Confluent. Existing standard clusters will remain unchanged through March 31, 2021, after which any existing single-zone clusters will be migrated to basic, and multi-zone clusters will be migrated to standard.

For more information, see Confluent Cloud Cluster Types.

Annual Commitment Users Can Provision Dedicated Clusters
Customers with annual commitments on usage-based billing plans can now provision new dedicated clusters with internet endpoints through the Confluent Cloud UI. For more information, see Confluent Cloud Cluster Types.
Confluent Cloud ksqlDB Production Availability
Confluent Cloud ksqlDB is now production available for all users on usage-based billing plans. For more information on how to get started, see Create streaming queries in Confluent Cloud ksqlDB.

March 31, 2020

Confluent Cloud Metrics API GA
The Confluent Cloud Metrics API is now GA with new metrics for connection counts and request rates. It is enabled for all newly provisioned clusters and is rolling out to existing clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure at this time. For more information, see Confluent Cloud Metrics API.
Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Sink GA
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Sink is now GA. For more information, see Azure Blob Storage Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.

February 18, 2020

Consumption-based Self-serve Confluent Cloud on the Azure Marketplace
With this release, you can now find consumption-based self-serve Confluent Cloud offering on the Azure Marketplace. You can sign up to use Confluent Cloud by utilizing your Azure spend. For more information, see Get Started with Confluent Cloud on the Azure Marketplace with Pay As You Go and the blog post.

January 24, 2020

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Oracle Database Source Preview
This feature is launched for your Apache Kafka® clusters in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. For more information, see Oracle Database Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Microsoft SQL Server Source Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure. For more information, see Microsoft SQL Server Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Google Cloud Pub/Sub Source Preview
This feature is launched for your Kafka clusters in AWS, GCP, and Azure. For more information, see Google Pub/Sub Source Connector for Confluent Cloud.

January 2, 2020

Fully-managed Confluent Cloud GCS Connector (Sink) GA
For more information, see Google Cloud Storage Sink Connector for 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.
  • 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
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 Support
  • 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:

Use all UI features with VPC-peered clusters
You can now use the Confluent Cloud web UI for ksqlDB 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 Networking in Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Connector (Sink) Preview
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud Azure Blob Storage Connector (Sink) available in Preview. For more information, see Azure Blob Storage Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Use Confluent Cloud in more regions

Confluent Cloud is now available in:

  • Azure useast2 (Virginia)
  • GCP asia-southeast1 (Singapore)

September 27, 2019

Confluent Cloud Schema Registry General Availability
Now available on Microsoft Azure and in multiple geographical regions (US, Europe, and APAC).

August 30, 2019

Microsoft Azure General Availability

Confluent Cloud is now generally available on Microsoft Azure in:

  • Azure southeastasia (Singapore)
  • Azure westus2 (Washington)
  • Azure westeurope (Netherlands)
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud S3 Connector (Sink) Production Availability.
For more information, see Amazon S3 Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Fully-managed Confluent Cloud GCS Connector (Sink) Preview
For more information, see Google Cloud Storage Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud.
Use Confluent Cloud in more regions

Confluent Cloud is now available in:

  • AWS ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo)
  • AWS ap-south-1 (Mumbai)
  • AWS ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)
  • GCP asia-northeast1 (Tokyo)
  • GCP asia-southeast1 (Singapore)
  • GCP europe-west4 (Netherlands)

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 uptime SLA is now available for new clusters created in some regions; the SLA is displayed in the cluster creation and cluster details UI if it is available. See Confluent Cloud SLA for details.
Schema Registry
Confluent Cloud Schema Registry is now generally available on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and in multiple geographical regions (US, Europe, and APAC). To get started, see Manage Schemas on Confluent Cloud.

August 1, 2019

VPC peering to multiple customer VPCs
You can now peer one Dedicated 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 Dedicated cluster running in AWS to an AWS Transit Gateway. Transit Gateway allows transitive routing and supports a variety of AWS networking services, which makes it possible to connect clients in many networks, both in the cloud and on-premises, to Confluent Cloud.

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

CLI update
The Confluent Cloud CLI now supports ACLs and service accounts.

May 13, 2019

Capacity increase
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.
ksqlDB Preview
Fully managed KSQL is available in Preview.

May 7, 2019

S3 Connector Preview
Fully managed AWS S3 Sink Connector is available in Preview.

May 1, 2019

Consumption-based pricing
Confluent Cloud now offers consumption-based pricing.
Name change
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

Schema edit UI
View and edit schemas in the Topic Management UI.

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
Schema Registry is now available in Preview.

February 27, 2019

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.
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

UI navigation update
The UI has been updated to show you more information with fewer clicks, and to logically group common actions. 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 navigation bar and in the cluster management UI. The Confluent Cloud Quick Start and related documentation is updated to reflect these changes.
Environment overview
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.
Parameter changes
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, some configuration parameters in the describe topics/configuration APIs are now read-only.