Astra DB Serverless release notes

Astra DB Serverless release notes provide information about new and improved features.

For Data API releases, see the Data API changelog.

30 August 2024

You can scrape Astra DB metrics in exposition format.

Increased the default collection limit for new Serverless (Vector) databases. Serverless (Vector) databases created after June 24, 2024 can have up to 10 collections. Databases created before this date can have up to 5 collections. The collection limit is based on Storage Attached Indexing (SAI).

21 June 2024

Added the Hugging Face - Dedicated external embedding provider integration to use with Astra DB vectorize.
The Astra-hosted NVIDIA embedding provider integration is now available for all Serverless (Vector) databases in AWS us-east-2. The NVIDIA embedding provider and its related settings are selected by default when creating a new collection.

Only databases in the AWS us-east-2 region can use the built-in NVIDIA embedding provider integration.

10 June 2024

Added the following external embedding provider integrations to use with Astra DB vectorize:

22 May 2024

Introduced a new Integrations section in the Astra Portal to manage integrations with third-party services.
Introduced Astra DB vectorize.

With Astra DB vectorize, you can integrate external and Astra-hosted embedding providers to automatically generate an embedding from text for any operation that requires a vector.

The following embedding providers are supported at launch:

11 April 2024

Released v1.0.0 of the Python, TypeScript, and Java clients, which are based on the foundational Data API for Serverless (Vector) databases. See the Quickstart to get started with the new clients.

Additional documentation topics have been revised to include extensive per-language examples:

Connection methods
API Reference

21 March 2024

The Data API 1.0.3 release provides the following features:

Support for generated document _id values, including the ObjectId type and related UUID types. Advantages include uniqueness, automation, and embedded timestamps.
The estimatedDocumentCount command has been added to the Data API. It returns an approximate count of documents in the specified collection. The count is based on the current system statistics at the time the estimatedDocumentCount request was received by the database server.
See the updated Data API swagger reference.
For information about other Data API changes, see the CHANGELOG.

14 March 2024

The Data API 1.0.2 release adds the following features:

The updateMany command now includes pagination support. You can update one page of matching documents at a time. If there are more matching documents to update, the first transaction returns a nextPageState ID in its response. You would then submit the insertMany command again and include the pageState ID in the second request, to update the next page of documents that matched the filter.

For details, see Update multiple documents for information about pagination support.
The URL of the Data API open-source GitHub repo has changed. Previously, it was https://github.com/stargate/jsonapi/. Now it’s https://github.com/stargate/data-api/. The prior GitHub URL redirects to the new one.
For information about other recent Data API changes, see the CHANGELOG in the open-source stargate/data-api GitHub repo.

20 February 2024

The DataStax Data API 1.0.1 release optimized its limits:

The maximum path length increased from 250 to 1,000. That limit is the total for all segments, including any dots (.) between properties in a path.
The maximum size of an entire batch of documents submitted via an insertMany or updateMany command increased from five million to 20 million characters.

See Data API limits for the full list.

For information about other recent Data API changes, see the CHANGELOG in the open-source stargate/jsonapi GitHub repo.

31 January 2024

The Data API supports an optional indexing clause for the createCollection command. By default, all properties in a document are indexed, which is consistent with prior implementations. To maintain the default behavior, omit the indexing clause from createCollection. To apply selective indexing, include the indexing clause and an array of document properties to index.

There are advantages and disadvantages to selective indexing. For more information and examples, see The indexing option.
Enhancements to Data API limits:
- The maximum number limit increased from 50 to 100 digits.
- The maximum array elements limit (1000) now applies to indexed properties only.
- The maximum document length limit increased from 1 million to 4 million characters.
With this update, the documentation also adds enhanced sample data with new properties and diverse values. These changes are used to highlight updated Data API command examples that feature queries that contain logical, range, and comparison operators. Such as $gte, $lt, $ne, $not, and $nin. See especially the following:
- Insert a single document, which includes sample properties customer.age and customer.credit_score, plus diverse values for each car’s amount and other properties.
- Insert many documents, with similar enhancements to the sample data in the request’s POST payload.

17 January 2024

A new Data API and revamped developer experience make Astra DB Serverless an even better fit for developing production generative AI and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications. For more about this release, see the blog post or join our YouTube livestream on January 24 with our partners from Vercel and LangChain.

This release includes these improvements:

The new Data API: The Data API is a schema-less, document-based, modern API that provides easy and intuitive access to structured vector data in your Serverless (Vector) databases. It leverages the scalability, performance, and real-time indexing capabilities of Apache Cassandra® to support GenAI application development. To get the most relevant results possible, you can execute vector search queries, apply complex document filtering, or both.

The Data API is an entry point for Astra DB Serverless to integrate with the GenAI ecosystem, which includes tools like LangChain, LlamaIndex, and a variety of embedding providers.
New client libraries: The new client libraries for Python, TypeScript, and Java simplify the development process with Astra DB Serverless. With just an API endpoint and token, developers can quickly add the most performant and scalable vector store to their next GenAI application.
Data Explorer in the Astra Portal: With the Data Explorer, developers can visualize similarity search scores and conduct vector-based searches with a ranked list of up to 100 results, based on similarity. This feature is particularly beneficial for RAG and AI agent use cases, allowing for refined search results. The Data Explorer also supports hybrid search filters, enabling more versatile and powerful data querying capabilities.
Focused and practical documentation: The Astra DB Serverless documentation is tailored to meet developers at each specific stage of development, providing relevant and essential information without unnecessary details.

14 November 2023

Astra Portal offers a new vector database experience. To try it, click Enable Preview in the Astra Portal.

The new experience includes:

Python, TypeScript, and Java clients for Serverless (Vector) databases.
New UIs for Database Metrics, Database Loader, and Database Explorer.
Enhanced documentation about the new vector experience.

Start in Astra Portal and see the Astra DB Serverless documentation.

Existing users of the JSON API and Mongoose public preview can toggle between the existing and new experiences. In Astra Portal, use the Enable Preview or Disable Preview buttons in the top banner.

5 September 2023

Analyzers are now available. Using analyzers with vector search allows you to create a hybrid search that includes your keyword and a vector.

18 July 2023

Astra Vector Search is generally available. Astra DB Serverless supports Vector Search to aid in developing Generative AI and Machine Learning applications.

Changes to database creation accommodate new vector-enabled regions.
Removal of Public preview designation for serverless Astra databases with Vector Search.

26 June 2023

Updated Organization Settings simplify managing users, roles, tokens, billing, and security.

25 June 2023

Astra Portal supports adding Splunk, Pulsar/Streaming, or Datadog as a destination for exported Astra DB Serverless health metrics. Those destinations were already supported via the DevOps API. Additional destinations are provided.

22 June 2023

Added standard and sidecar caller modes and updated vault commands in the Astra DB Serverless Plugin for HashiCorp Vault 2.0.0 release.

07 June 2023

Astra Vector Search is in public preview for Astra DB Serverless. Astra Vector Search efficiently finds highly relevant and similar context in large language models (LLMs). Vector Search captures semantics in a way that eclipses term-based relevance methods.

27 February 2023

Integrations are now embedded within the Astra Portal.
You can now expand and collapse the left navigation.
The Astra Portal is now designed to also fit a tablet or laptop.

02 February 2023

Added Datadog as a supported destination of Astra DB Serverless Serverless database health metrics, via the DevOps v2 API. Exporting these metrics to Datadog is not supported via the Astra Portal at this time.

31 January 2023

Released DataStax Zero Downtime Migration 2.2.0, which added the zdm_proxy_cluster_config.yml file to contain all the configuration variables for Origin and Target. Prior to version 2.2.0, the variables were in the zdm_proxy_core_config.yml file. The change is backward compatible.

13 January 2023

Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM) has released version 2.1.0. By default, ZDM Proxy now sends heartbeats after 30 seconds of inactivity on a cluster connection.

05 January 2023

Lightweight Transactions (LWTs) now support EACH_QUORUM and SERIAL consistency levels.

03 January 2023

Astra DB Serverless adds support on AWS for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard 3.2.1 (PCI DSS).

To create and use Astra DB Serverless on AWS that comply with PCI DSS, please contact your DataStax Account Executive or email sales@datastax.com.

Previous releases

14 December 2022

Published the Astra Command Line Interface (Astra CLI) 0.2 documentation. Astra CLI provides a one-stop shop for managing your Astra resources through scripts or commands in your local terminal.

05 December 2022

Added Splunk and Pulsar as supported destinations of Astra DB Serverless exported health metrics, via the DevOps API.

10 November 2022

Released the General Availability (GA) version of Astra DB Serverless Plugin for HashiCorp Vault. The GA version includes new support for dynamic token management. See our Astra DB Serverless Plugin for HashiCorp Vault documentation in the plugin’s GitHub repo.

Specifically, you can:

Define a default lease time
Create new tokens with lease settings
List tokens by each one’s Client ID
View lease details
List all leases
Renew a lease
Revoke a token/lease before the lease expires
Delete a token

18 October 2022

Using DataStax Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM) 2.0 allows you to migrate to Astra DB Serverless from Apache Cassandra® and DataStax Enterprise (DSE). For example, you can use ZDM to migrate your client applications and data from Cassandra 3.11.x directly to cloud-native Astra DB Serverless.

This suite of tools allows for zero downtime migration only if your database meets the minimum requirements. If your database does not meet these requirements, you can complete the migration from Origin to Target, but downtime might be necessary to finish the migration.

13 October 2022

Launched renamed, aggregated health metrics. You can export these metrics to a third-party system such as Amazon CloudWatch, Kafka, and Prometheus, and use tools such as Grafana Cloud to visualize the metrics.

21 July 2022

You can set up your custom DNS with a private endpoint for Azure and use your DNS entry to send traffic to the private endpoint.

24 May 2022

Launched a public beta of Astra DB Serverless Plugin for HashiCorp Vault. This open-source project adds robust token lifecycle management features for Astra DB Serverless. For details, see the documentation in the plugin’s GitHub repo.

16 May 2022

The Astra DB Serverless Metrics feature allows you to forward Astra DB Serverless database health metrics to an external third-party metrics system, which includes:

DevOps v2 API functionality
Support for Prometheus as a destination system
Steps to visualize the exported Astra DB Serverless database health metrics in Grafana or Grafana Cloud

28 April 2022

You can configure customer keys in the Astra Portal for Astra DB Serverless databases in Google Cloud regions.

18 April 2022

You can configure customer keys in the Astra Portal for Astra DB Serverless databases in AWS regions. This Astra Portal option extends the bring your own key (BYOK) feature already present in the Astra DB DevOps API.

07 April 2022

Launched a Private Preview of the Astra DB Serverless Metrics feature.

24 March 2022

CDC for Astra DB Serverless is now available. CDC for Astra DB Serverless automatically captures changes in real time, de-duplicates the changes, and streams the clean set of changed data into Astra Streaming where it can be processed by client applications or sent to downstream systems.

23 February 2022

Astra DB Serverless support for new regions:

Google Cloud: West Europe2 (europe-west2) in London
Azure:
- Canada Central (canadacentral) in Toronto
- US East (eastus) in Virginia

14 February 2022

You can now remove a payment method from the Pay As You Go plan on Astra DB Serverless.

08 February 2022

You can configure single sign-on (SSO) to manage access to various applications. SSO allows for a seamless sign-on experience, and gives centralized and streamlined access control to security operations teams. Once configured, this security enhancement means that during a user’s next login attempt in the Astra Portal, the user is prompted to enter their company SSO credentials. If the credentials are valid, the authenticated user is logged into their Astra DB Serverless organization automatically.

31 January 2022

The Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) feature is now generally available for AWS-based Astra DB Serverless. Contact DataStax Support to have a representative enable BYOK for your organization.

11 January 2022

Participants in a private preview can use the Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) feature with their AWS-based Astra DB Serverless.

07 January 2022

You can now load data into your Astra DB Serverless database from an Amazon S3 bucket that contains exported DynamoDB data in the Astra DB Serverless Data Loader.

06 January 2022

Added support for the Azure centralindia (Central India, Pune) region.

09 November 2021

You can now add private endpoints for Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud in Astra Portal in addition to DevOps API endpoints.

14 September 2021

You can now create databases with multiple regions.

02 September 2021

Private endpoints are available through the DevOps API for Google Cloud.
Added support for serverless AWS us-east-2 region.

12 August 2021

Private endpoints are available through the DevOps API for Azure.

29 July 2021

Added support for serverless Google Cloud us-east-4 region.

21 July 2021

Private endpoints are available through the DevOps API for AWS.

16 June 2021

Access lists are available to restrict public access to your serverless database.

11 June 2021

Added support for serverless Azure southcentralus region.

24 May 2021

Backup and restore is now available on Astra DB Serverless.

14 May 2021

Size of values in a single column increased to 10 MB
Maximum number of columns per table increased to 75
Maximum number of SAI indexes increased to 50 per table or database
Added support for the Microsoft Azure northeurope region.

03 May 2021

You can now manage your roles and tokens with the DevOps API.

15 April 2021

You can now create Astra DB Serverless databases in Microsoft Azure regions.
Added support for AWS us-west-2 and GCP us-west-1 regions.
Astra DB Serverless databases now support logged batches.

04 March 2021

Astra DB Serverless is available on multiple cloud providers.

Other improvements:

You can now manage your user permissions with Identity and Access Management and custom roles.
Application tokens simplify connecting to your database with the available APIs.

Additional changes:
Astra DB Serverless workloads are limited to 4096 ops/s/coordinator by default.
Each element of a call to the Document API counts as a read or write, which can increase the number of reads and writes and affect your pricing. For example, 5,000 write requests/s with 11 fields means 55,000 op/s.