Hyper-Converged Database (HCD) release notes

Hyper-Converged Database (HCD) is compatible with Apache Cassandra® 4.0 and adds additional production-certified changes. HCD includes the following innovations:

Here are the features, enhancements, and updates per HCD version.

Version 1.2.6

IBM Passport Advantage part number: M138NEN

This version was released on May 11, 2026 and includes the following items:

New features and enhancements

  • Updated default Guardrail configurations. JVM Heap settings are now automatically optimized according to the server’s number of cores and physical memory. (HCD-198)

  • Upgraded the security plugin library to include Apache Directory version 2.0.0.M27. (HCD-286)

  • Added support for Python versions 3.12 and 3.13 and Python driver version 3.29. Removed support for Python version 2.7. (HCD-190)

  • Upgraded httpcore5-h2 to version 5.4.0. (HCD-319)

  • Upgraded the logback-core library to version 1.5.25. (HCD-261)

Fixed issues

  • Fixed an issue with DSE 6.9 nodes when upgrading to HCD with encryption enabled. (HCD-241)

  • Fixed an issue with concurrent repairs and compactions. (HCD-200)

  • Fixed a race in prepared statements porting CASSANDRA-19703. (HCD-146)

  • Upgraded the Docker Management API version to 0.1.116 to fix broken metrics endpoints. (HCD-324)

  • Fixed CQLSH DESCRIBE command failures. (HCD-339)

Security fixes

Version 1.2.5

IBM Passport Advantage part number: M122SEN

This version was released on January 26, 2026 and includes the following items:

New features and enhancements

  • Upgraded commons-codec to version 1.20.0. (HCD-262)

  • Upgraded Bouncy Castle to version 1.83. (HCD-263)

  • Added an option to skip exception logging on invalid legacy protocol magic exceptions. (HCD-247)

Security fixes

  • Upgraded Netty to version 4.1.130 and BoringSSL to version 2.0.74. (HCD-258), (CVE-2025-67735)

  • Upgraded jackson-dataformat-msgpack to version 0.9.11 and jackson to version 2.18.4. (HCD-259), (CVE-2026-21452)

  • Upgraded the JDK for RedHat UBI images to version 11.0.29. (HCD-260), (CVE-2025-53066)

  • Upgraded logback to version 1.5.25. (HCD-261), (CVE-2024-12798), (CVE-2025-11226), (CVE-2026-1225), (CVE-2024-12801)

  • Upgraded the lz4-java library to version 1.10.2. (HCD-264), (CVE-2025-12183)

For a complete list of CVEs fixed in this release, see the IBM Security Bulletin for HCD.

Version 1.2.4

This version was released on November 5, 2025 and includes the following items:

New features and enhancements

  • Upgraded Bouncy Castle to version 1.82. (HCD-207)

  • Upgraded Guava to 33.5.0. (HCD-211), (CVE-2020-8908), (CVE-2023-2976), (CVE-2025-59419)

  • Upgraded Netty to 4.1.128.Final. (HCD-205), (CVE-2025-59419)

Version 1.2.3

Version 1.2.3 is the first public release of HCD 1.2. This version was released on August 1, 2025 and includes the following items:

New features and enhancements

  • Added the following security updates:

    • Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication support (HCD-2)

    • Role-based access control (RBAC) support (HCD-3)

    • Encryption key management (HCD-4)

    • Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) support (DSP-23529)

    • OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication support (DSP-24578)

For more information, see the Security section.

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