FoundationDB 6.1.8 Released

FoundationDB 6.1.8 is now officially available!

The latest FoundationDB release can be downloaded and installed as binaries from GitHub (available for macOS, Windows, Linux), or as source from our GitHub repository. If you're already running FDB, also see our upgrade instructions.

This release removes a few of the caveats that came with cross-region replication when it was introduced in 6.0:

• Improved write throughput during failures: One of the primary motivations for cross-region replication is to keep the database available even when all machines in a region are offline. The 6.1 release dramatically increases the performance of the system during region failures, allowing clusters to keep up with their existing workloads.
• Robust forced recoveries: If all the transaction logs are lost when a region fails, the system will wait for those transaction logs to come back before recovering to ensure the database remains consistent. However, in the worst case that those transaction logs are lost permanently, the 6.1 release adds a way to force the system to recover to the other region.

Some other highlights from this release include:

• Batch priority transactions: Added the ability to execute transactions at batch priority. These transactions do not execute if the cluster is too busy to handle them. This feature makes it safer and easier to bulk insert data into a production cluster.
• Efficient consistent caching: Added a special key whose value is sent to clients at the beginning of every transaction. Clients can know that locally cached metadata is still valid as long as the value of this key has not changed.

A full list of features, fixes, and other changes are documented in our release notes.