What's New in Schema Registry

KafkaAvroSerializer and KafkaAvroDeserializer improvements

KafkaAvroSerializer and KafkaAvroDeserializer can now handle null values without Avro

The KafkaAvroSerializer and KafkaAvroDeserializer now support a configuration property called null.passthrough.enabled, which is false by default. If enabled, null data is handled as null, and no schema is sent to Schema Registry. This behavior enables client applications to write tombstone messages into compact topics. The KafkaAvroDeserializer also handles null values by returning null without any regards to the schema.

Support deserialization when the topic and schema names don't match

From now on, the KafkaAvroDeserializer uses the schema version's ID in the Avro byte stream to access the actual schema and disregards schema names.

Logical types conversion for the KafkaAvroSerliazier and KafkaAvroDesrializer

The KafkaAvroSerializer and KafkaAvroDeserializer can now properly handle and convert Avro logical types at a record level. This means that if you have a record that has a field with a built-in Avro logical type (for example a BigDecimal field with BYTES type and decimal logical type), you can now properly serialize the records. After deserialization, a GenericRecord is returned, including the typed BigDecimal field, instead of a ByteBuffer. Logical type conversion can be enabled using the logical.type.conversion.enabled property. This property is set to false by default for backward compatibility.

Principal mapping rules can be defined without quotes

The SSL Client Authentication Mapping Rules (schema.registry.ssl.principal.mapping.rules) property now accepts rules that are defined without quotes. As a result, when adding multiple rules, you no longer need to enclose each rule in quotes.

Remove modules section from registry.yaml

In previous versions, the registry.yaml configuration file contained a modules section. This section was used to list pluggable modules that extended Schema Registry’s functionality. However, modules were never fully supported and have been removed in a previous release. The modules section in registry.yaml was kept for backwards compatibility. Starting with this version, the modules section is removed by default from registry.yaml.