AMQ Streams 2.2.x is the Long Term Support (LTS) offering for AMQ Streams.

The latest patch release is AMQ Streams 2.2.2. The AMQ Streams product images have changed to version 2.2.2. The supported Kafka version remains at 3.2.3.

For information on the LTS terms and dates, see the AMQ Streams LTS Support Policy.

AMQ Streams now supports Apache Kafka version 3.2.3.

AMQ Streams uses Kafka 3.2.3. Only Kafka distributions built by Red Hat are supported.

For upgrade instructions, see AMQ Streams and Kafka upgrades.

Refer to the Kafka 3.1.0, Kafka 3.2.0, Kafka 3.2.1, and Kafka 3.2.3 Release Notes for additional information.

For more information on supported versions, see the AMQ Streams Component Details.

Kafka 3.2.3 uses ZooKeeper version 3.6.3, which is the same version as Kafka 3.1.0. We recommend that you perform a rolling update to use the new binaries.

AMQ Streams 2.2 is enabled to run on IBM Z and LinuxONE s390x architecture.

IBM Z and LinuxONE is tested for AMQ Streams running with Kafka and Open JDK 11, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and later.

AMQ Streams 2.2 is enabled to run on IBM Power ppc64le architecture.

IBM Power is tested for AMQ Streams running with Kafka and Open JDK 11, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and later.

Apache Kafka is in the process of phasing out the need for ZooKeeper. You can now try deploying a Kafka cluster in KRaft (Kafka Raft metadata) mode without ZooKeeper.

This feature should be treated as a development preview.

Currently, the KRaft mode in AMQ Streams has the following major limitations:

See Running Kafka in KRaft mode.

Cruise Control moves from Technology Preview to General Availability (GA). You can install Cruise Control and use it to rebalance your Kafka cluster using optimization goals — defined constraints on CPU, disk, network load, and more. In a balanced Kafka cluster, the workload is more evenly distributed across the broker pods.

Cruise Control helps to reduce the time and effort involved in running an efficient and balanced Kafka cluster.

A zipped distribution of Cruise Control is available for download from the AMQ Streams software downloads page. To install Cruise Control, you configure each Kafka broker to use the provided Metrics Reporter. Then, you set Cruise Control properties, including optimization goals, and start Cruise Control using the provided script.

The Cruise Control server is hosted on a single machine for the whole Kafka cluster.

When Cruise Control is running, you can use the REST API to:

Other Cruise Control features are not currently supported, including notifications, write-your-own goals, and changing the topic replication factor.

See Cruise Control for cluster rebalancing.

For an overview of the enhancements introduced with Kafka 3.2.0, 3.2.1, and 3.2.3, refer to the Kafka 3.2.0 Release Notes, Kafka 3.2.1 Release Notes, and Kafka 3.2.3 Release Notes.

Use the Kafka Static Quota plugin to set throughput and storage limits on brokers in your Kafka cluster. You can set a byte-rate threshold and storage quotas to put limits on the clients interacting with your brokers.

client.quota.callback.class= io.strimzi.kafka.quotas.StaticQuotaCallback
client.quota.callback.static.produce= 1000000
client.quota.callback.static.fetch= 1000000
client.quota.callback.static.storage.soft= 400000000000
client.quota.callback.static.storage.hard= 500000000000
client.quota.callback.static.storage.check-interval= 5

See Setting limits on brokers using the Kafka Static Quota plugin.

Support for OpenTracing is deprecated.

The Jaeger clients are now retired and the OpenTracing project archived. As such, we cannot guarantee their support for future Kafka versions. We are introducing a new tracing implementation based on the OpenTelemetry project.

Support for Java 8 was deprecated in Kafka 3.0.0 and AMQ Streams 2.0. Java 8 will be unsupported for all AMQ Streams components, including clients, in the future.

AMQ Streams supports Java 11. Use Java 11 when developing new applications. Plan to migrate any applications that currently use Java 8 to Java 11.

Kafka MirrorMaker replicates data between two or more active Kafka clusters, within or across data centers. Kafka MirrorMaker 1 is deprecated for Kafka 3.2.3 and will be removed in Kafka 4.0.0. MirrorMaker 2.0 will be the only version available. MirrorMaker 2.0 is based on the Kafka Connect framework, connectors managing the transfer of data between clusters.

As a consequence, the AMQ Streams KafkaMirrorMaker custom resource which is used to deploy Kafka MirrorMaker 1 has been deprecated. The KafkaMirrorMaker resource will be removed from AMQ Streams when Kafka 4.0.0 is adopted.

If you are using MirrorMaker 1 (referred to as just MirrorMaker in the AMQ Streams documentation), use the KafkaMirrorMaker2 custom resource with the IdentityReplicationPolicy. MirrorMaker 2.0 renames topics replicated to a target cluster. IdentityReplicationPolicy configuration overrides the automatic renaming. Use it to produce the same active/passive unidirectional replication as MirrorMaker 1.

See Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0 cluster configuration.

Identity replication policy is used with MirrorMaker 2 to override the automatic renaming of remote topics. Instead of prepending the name with the name of the source cluster, the topic retains its original name. This optional setting is useful for active/passive backups and data migration.

The AMQ Streams Identity Replication Policy class (io.strimzi.kafka.connect.mirror.IdentityReplicationPolicy) is now deprecated and will be removed in the future. You can update to use Kafka’s own Identity Replication Policy (class org.apache.kafka.connect.mirror.IdentityReplicationPolicy).

See Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0 cluster configuration.

The AMQ Streams 2.2.2 patch release (Long Term Support) is now available.

For additional details about the issues resolved in AMQ Streams 2.2.2, see AMQ Streams 2.2.x Resolved Issues.

For additional details about the issues resolved in AMQ Streams 2.2.1, see AMQ Streams 2.2.x Resolved Issues.