Release Notes for Confluent Platform 7.7

7.7 is a major release of Confluent Platform that provides you with Apache Kafka® 3.7, the latest stable version of Kafka.

The technical details of this release are summarized below.

For more information about the 7.7 release, check out the release blog.

Kafka brokers

Confluent Server

OAuth for Confluent Server is generally available in Confluent Platform 7.7. For more information, see the Security section later in this document and Use SASL/OAUTHBEARER Authentication between Confluent Server Brokers and Kafka Clients in Confluent Platform.

Confluent Community / Kafka

Confluent Platform 7.7 features Kafka 3.7.

  • Change Notice: Effective with Confluent Platform 8.0, Confluent Platform, Community version will transition to follow the Kafka release cycle more closely. The Kafka community provides about one year of patch support for a Kafka version, from the minor version release date, and Confluent Community software will soon follow a similar support schedule. Confluent customers using Confluent Enterprise will continue to receive patch updates for three years following minor version release. For more details, see Confluent Platform and Apache Kafka compatibility.

In Confluent Platform 7.7, major features include:

  • KRaft Mode Enhancements:
  • Client Resilience & Metrics:
    • Exponential Backoff for Clients: Improved handling of retries.
    • Client Metrics: Enhanced observability with client-level metrics.
  • Kafka Streams Improvements:
    • StandbyTaskUpdateListener: New interface for standby task updates.
    • Rack-aware Task Assignment: Better task distribution across racks.

For a full list of the KIPs, features, and bug fixes, see the Apache Kafka release notes, Kafka 3.7 New Features and Updates on the Confluent blog, or the Kafka 3.7 release video that follows.

Cluster Management

Confluent for Kubernetes (formerly Confluent Operator)

For Confluent for Kubernetes release notes, see Confluent for Kubernetes Release Notes.

Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform

For Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform release notes, see the Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform.

Confluent CLI

  • Confluent Platform 7.7 ships with Confluent CLI version 3.64.3. For more information, see the CLI release notes. To install and use a later version of the CLI, you must download and install an alternative CLI version using these instructions.
  • Confluent CLI can now authenticate its users with SSO.
  • The Confluent Hub CLI installation feature was deprecated in Confluent Platform 7.6 and will be removed in later versions. Use the confluent connect plugin install command to install self-managed connectors.

Kafka Connect

  • OAuth for Kafka Connect is generally available in Confluent Platform 7.7.

Schema Registry

  • OAuth for Schema Registry is generally available in Confluent Platform 7.7.

Security

Confluent Platform 7.7 adds the following security improvements:

  • OAuth/OIDC capabilities are now available for Confluent Server, REST Proxy, Schema Registry, Kafka Connect, Confluent Control Center and also the Confluent CLI.
  • Clients and Connectors can run on OAuth with Confluent Platform services.
  • OAuth-based authentication is now available to enable Schema Linking and Cluster Linking from Confluent Platform to Confluent Cloud.
  • Confluent Control Center SSO and Confluent CLI SSO can be enabled for members of an organization.
  • LDAP resiliency and availability improvements were also made in Confluent Platform 7.7.

Confluent Platform for Apache Flink

Confluent Platform for Apache Flink® is in limited availability for Confluent Platform 7.7. This means it is fully supported for select customers.

To learn more about Confluent Platform for Apache Flink, see Confluent Platform for Apache Flink Features and Support. To get started, see Get Started with Confluent Platform for Apache Flink.

Other improvements and changes

  • Confluent Platform 7.7, Confluent Platform adds support for the following operating systems:

    • Amazon Linux 2023
    • Debian 12 (bookworm)

    For more information, see Operating systems.

  • The Confluent Platform 7.7 Docker images are now built with Java 17. For more information, see Docker.

  • Confluent Platform images are now FIPS compliant.

Supported versions and interoperability

For the supported versions and interoperability of Confluent Platform and its components, see Supported Versions and Interoperability for Confluent Platform.

How to download

Confluent Platform is available for download at https://confluent.io/download/. See the Install Confluent Platform On-Premises section for detailed information.

Important

The Confluent Platform package includes Confluent Server by default and requires a confluent.license key in your server.properties file. Starting with Confluent Platform 5.4.x, the Confluent Server broker checks for a license during start-up. You must supply a license string in each broker’s properties file using the confluent.license property as below:

confluent.license=LICENCE_STRING_HERE_NO_QUOTES

If you want to use the Kafka broker, download the confluent-community package. The Kafka broker is the default in all Debian or RHEL and CentOS packages.

For more information about migrating to Confluent Server, see Migrate Confluent Platform to Confluent Server.

To upgrade Confluent Platform to a newer version, check the Upgrade Confluent Platform documentation.

Questions?

  • If you have questions regarding this release, feel free to reach out via the community mailing list or community Slack. Confluent customers are encouraged to contact our support directly.
  • To provide feedback on the Confluent documentation, click the Give us feedback button located near the footer of each page.