Stepping into the world of Apache Kafka® can feel a bit daunting at first. I know this firsthand—while I have a background in real-time messaging systems, shifting into Kafka’s terminology and concepts seemed dense and complex. There’s a wealth of information out there, and it’s sometimes difficult to find the best (and, ideally, free) resources.
At this year’s Current, we introduced the public preview of our serverless Apache Flink® service, making it easier than ever to take advantage of stream processing without the complexities of infrastructure management. This first iteration of the service offers the Flink SQL API, which adheres to the ANSI standard and enables any user familiar with SQL to use Flink.
The Apache Flink PMC is pleased to announce the release of Apache Flink 1.18.0. As usual, we are looking at a packed release with a wide variety of improvements and new features. Overall, 174 people contributed to this release completing 18 FLIPS and 700+ issues. Thank you! Let's dive into the highlights.