Here’s a roundup of the latest features and updates we’ve recently released.

If you have any particular feature requests or enhancement ideas that you would like to see, please get in touch with us.

Major announcements

Apache Kafka®

We’re excited to announce the General Availability of Instaclustr for Apache Kafka and Kafka Connect 4.0.0 on the NetApp Instaclustr Managed Platform. This release introduces KRaft-only metadata management, removing the need for ZooKeeper, along with a new consumer rebalance protocol promising improved performance and early access to queue support. Deprecated APIs have been removed, and Java 17 is now required for brokers. Learn more in the Kafka 4.0.0 release notes.

OpenSearch®

OpenSearch 3.0 is now available on the NetApp Instaclustr Managed Platform in Public Preview, with General Availability coming soon. This major update includes enhanced search performance using Apache Lucene 10, advanced AI/ML features, and operational improvements such as a rebuilt discovery tool and upgraded SQL plugin. OpenSearch 3.0 also ensures better security and access to cutting-edge features.

PostgreSQL®

We are thrilled to announce that PostgreSQL on the NetApp Instaclustr Managed Platform is now PCI Certified on AWS and GCP. This powerful, open source object-relational database system, known for its reliability and performance, now offers enhanced security with PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) certification. This certification complements Instaclustr’s existing PCI-DSS and SOC 2 accreditations, emphasizing our commitment to robust data security. Enterprise customers with stringent security requirements can now leverage Instaclustr’s managed data solutions, confident in their compliance with strict security standards.

Valkey™

Valkey 8, the latest major release of our advanced open source, in-memory data structure store, is now available on the NetApp Instaclustr Managed Platform. The latest version delivers significant performance enhancements by optimizing temporary set object handling, introducing asynchronous I/O threading for better multi-threaded performance, and implementing dual channel replication for more efficient full sync replication. It also introduces significant improvements in performance, reliability, and observability alongside new features that enhance efficiency and user experience.

Other significant changes: 

Apache Cassandra® 

  • Instaclustr for Apache Cassandra released support for AWS r8g nodes in available AWS regions. 
  • Support for creating Cassandra Privatelink clusters with custom Subject Alternative Names is now available. 
  • Support for the existing AWS r7g and m7g node sizes for Cassandra has been extended to include additional regions. 

Apache Kafka® 

ClickHouse® 

  • Network load balancer can be added to existing ClickHouse clusters by customers raising a support request 
  • Support for the existing AWS m7g node size for Clickhouse has been extended to include the AP_NORTHEAST_2, ME_CENTRAL_1 and EU_WEST_3 regions 

OpenSearch®  

  • Restoring a cluster via Terraform is now supported 
  • OpenSearch Dashboards 2.x clusters using OpenID Connect and without PCI can now also use basic authentication 

 PostgreSQL® 

 

Valkey™ 

 

Instaclustr Managed Platform 

  • Support for the UK South (London) Azure region has been added to the Netapp Instaclustr Managed Platform 
  • Instaclustr Maintenance Events system introduced New Customer Configurable Notification Preferences and New Support of a Webhook for Slack Integration. 

Upcoming releases: 

Apache Kafka® 

  • 7th and 8th gen AWS nodes will be released to General Availability soon, allowing customers to support existing workloads at lower cost 
  • JDBC Source and Sink Connectors will soon be added as bundled connectors​, allowing customer to integrate Kafka in a pipeline with most relational databases 
  • The ClickHouse Sink connector will soon be included as a bundled connector, enabling customers, who use Kafka and ClickHouse, to benefit from shorter turnaround time moving data from Kafka to ClickHouse, while getting full support cover for the connector itself. 

Cadence 

  • Cadence 1.2.18 is coming soon. Watch out for our announcement to update Cadence Core, ensuring you benefit from bug fixes and stable deployments 
  • Cadence Web 4.0 will be Generally Available soon on the NetApp Instaclustr Managed Platform with a revamped UI, offering a sleeker design and improved oversight for customers.​ 

 ClickHouse® 

  • S3 Private Bucket Support for Clickhouse is underway, allowing customers to run ClickHouse queries on data stored in a private S3 bucket, with optional KMS encryption ​ 
  • ClickHouse is advancing towards General Availability support for Azure, enabling customers to benefit from both the power of ClickHouse for real-time analytics and the wide array of services available through Azure. 

 OpenSearch  

  • Opensearch 3.0 will soon be released to General Availability: Apache Lucene 10 integration for better query performance, enhanced AI/ML features including vector search and k-NN, a new JavaScript client supporting TypeScript, and improved dashboards with backend and UI updates. 

 Instaclustr Managed Platform 

  • The upcoming Custom Tags Management feature will allow users to add, edit, or delete tags for their clusters directly through the Instaclustr console, APIs, or Terraform provider for RIYOA deployments.