Astra DB release notes

Astra Vector Search is in public preview for Astra DB serverless. Vector Search uses data to be compared by similarity within a database, even if it is not explicitly defined by a connection. The Vector Search data can be read with CQL or cassIO.

To learn more, see the Vector Search documentation or get started in the Astra Portal.

Astra Block is now generally available for Astra DB serverless. Astra Block is a blockchain data service that offers real-time indexed blockchain data for building Web3 and decentralized applications (dapps). With Astra Block, you can stream a sanitized blockchain dataset into an Astra database in real-time.

In this release, Astra Block provides support for the Ethereum Mainnet blockchain. To get started, see Astra Block quickstart.

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

Released DataStax ZDM Proxy Automation 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. For more, see this ZDM topic.

Released the DataStax Zero Downtime Migration Interactive Lab, which walks you through the process of migrating from any Cassandra/DSE/Astra DB database to another Cassandra/DSE/Astra DB database across clusters. See:

DataStax 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. For details, start in the ZDM Release Notes and follow the links.

Lightweight Transactions (LWTs) now support EACH_QUORUM and SERIAL consistency levels. For more, see Using multiple regions.

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

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

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. For more, see Astra CLI Overview.

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

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

Specifically, you can:

Using DataStax Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM) 2.0 allows you to migrate to Astra DB 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. For other supported scenarios, see the ZDM introduction.

Launched renamed, aggregated Astra DB 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. For the specific metrics' descriptions, see Database health metrics forwarded by Astra DB.

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.

Launched a public beta of Astra DB Plugin for HashiCorp Vault. This open-source project adds robust token lifecycle management features for Astra DB. For details, see the documentation in the plugin’s GitHub repo. Also see this introductory video on the DataStax Developers YouTube channel.

The Astra DB documentation is now organized by major user goals, including Planning, Securing, Managing, Connecting, and Developing.

The Astra DB Metrics feature allows you to forward Astra DB database health metrics to an external third-party metrics system. See Export Astra DB metrics to a third party for details about:

Support in Astra DB for additional supported regions, including ap-southeast-2 (Singapore), ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo), and eu-west-2 (London) for Astra DB Classic databases on AWS. For the full list, see Database regions. In Astra Portal, when you create an Astra DB database or click Add Region for an existing database, you’ll also see the supported regions list for each combination of Astra DB database type (Serverless or Classic) and cloud provider.

In the per-organization Security Settings UI provided by Astra Portal, added support for Google Cloud based Astra DB databases. Allows you to associate a Customer Key in Astra Portal with an existing Customer Managed Encryption Key (CMEK) defined in Google Cloud console. For the full set of Bring Your Own Key topics, see:

For AWS-based Astra DB databases, added per-organization Security Settings in Astra Portal. Allows you to associate a Customer Key in the Astra Portal with an existing Customer Managed Key defined in AWS Key Management Service. The new UI enhances the Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) feature already present via the Astra DB DevOps API for AWS and GCP.

Launched a Private Preview of the Astra DB Metrics feature. See Export Astra DB metrics to a third party.

CDC for Astra DB is now available. CDC for Astra DB 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.

Astra DB serverless support for new regions:

You can now remove a payment method from the pay as you go plan on Astra DB.

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 on DataStax Astra, the user is prompted to enter their company SSO credentials. If the credentials are valid, the authenticated user is logged into their DataStax Astra organization automatically.

New Astra DB pricing went into effect on 01-Feb-2022. See the introductory information on Pricing and billing in the Astra DB documentation.

The Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) feature is now Generally Available (GA) for AWS-based Astra DB databases. Contact DataStax Support to have a representative enable BYOK for your organization. See Bring Your Own Key for AWS, and the DevOps /v2/kms Customer Keys API reference.

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

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

Added support for serverless Azure centralindia (Central India, Pune) region. For more, see Database regions.

You can now define private endpoints for Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud in Astra Portal in addition to DevOps API calls that enable the same configurations. See your database’s Dashboard > Settings tab. See Connect via a private endpoint.

You can now create multiple datacenters across regions for serverless databases.

Private endpoints are available through the DevOps API for Azure.

Added support for serverless Google Cloud us-east-4 region. For more, see Database regions.

Private endpoints are available through the DevOps API for AWS.

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

Added support for serverless Azure southcentralus region. For more, see Database regions.

Backup and restore is now available on serverless databases.

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

Astra DB now offers a serverless database that is available on multiple cloud providers. For more, see Astra DB plan options.

Other improvements:

Additional changes:

Astra DB meets SOC 2 Type II security audit compliance.

We’ve improved our user interface to make Astra DB easier for you. Check out your databases and our new resources in Astra DB.

Use VPC peering to access your database on Azure and GCP. This feature is available for C- and D-tier classic databases.

You can now create your Astra DB database with Microsoft Azure as your cloud provider.

Improvement: Added C-20, C-40, D-10, D-20, and D-40 database tiers. For more, see Service tier options.

DevOps API simplifies creating and managing Astra DB databases To start using the DevOps API, create a service account for your organization. Use the service account secret to authenticate your service account and use the DevOps API.

Also, the Astra DB product documentation and the Astra DB API references are now hosted together at https://docs.datastax.com/en/astra/docs.

Use VPC peering to access your database on AWS clusters VPC peering is available to access your Astra DB database from the AWS Console. This feature is available for only C10 databases on AWS.

Also, you can submit questions or feedback directly in Astra Portal using our new Chat feature.

Manage Organizations is now listed under your databases menu. From the Manage Organizations screen, you can View Billing and View Users under the Action menu.

New features:

Documentation help pane provides useful documentation links When you select Get Help a pane opens that provides links to helpful documentation for using your Astra DB database.

Improvements:

The Generally Available (GA) release of Astra DB includes these enhancements:

Astra DB brought the Cassandra Query Language SHell (CQLSH) even closer to you by integrating it directly in the console. Navigate to your database, select the CQL Console tab, and issue CQL commands to interact with your database.

The standalone version of CQLSH was released for connecting to Astra DB databases. What does that mean for you? It means connecting to an Astra DB database from your laptop without requiring DataStax Enterprise (DSE). Previously, you used native CQLSH included in DSE. Now, you can download CQLSH, download the secure connect bundle for your Astra DB database, and connect with a single command.

The Free tier was released for Astra DB, allowing you to create an Astra DB database with 10 GB for free. Create a database with just a few clicks and start developing within minutes, no credit card required.

The open Beta release of Astra DB brings the ability to develop and deploy data-driven applications with a cloud-native service, built on the best distribution of Apache Cassandra™, without the hassles of database and infrastructure administration.

Instead of listing the features included in this release, learn about what Astra DB is, and then get started with creating your own database. If you have questions, review the FAQ for answers.