Skip to content

Database 8.1 Release Notes

August 5, 2025  |  Download

New in this version

The 8.1 release introduces major improvements to performance, reliability, observability, and developer control — all designed for teams building and operating real-time systems at scale.

Developer Experience

  • Expression indexes – Index only records that match your business filters (ints, strings, blobs, GeoJSON, CDTs), cutting RAM use and speeding queries.

Performance Enhancements

  • Vertical scaling on high-core machines – Unlock up to 6.4× throughput on 128+-core servers with automatic lock-sharding, no tuning required.
  • Lazy bin loading – Unpack only the bins your app reads on the read path, reducing CPU work, memory use, and latency spikes on reads from wide records.

Operational Control

  • Admin port mode – Connect asadm to a single node so you can retain access even when service connections hit their max (not governed by proto-fd-max).
  • Multi-namespace XDR mapping – Map multiple local namespaces to one remote namespace to support complex data migrations.
  • Mesh DNS seed logging – Log resolved IPs at INFO level for DNS-based mesh seeds, improving visibility into cluster discovery.

Observability

  • User-agent – Record client type, library version, and app ID per connection in asadm and logs to catch compatibility issues early.
  • Health-outlier improvements – Raise outlier thresholds and lower log verbosity to INFO to cut false alarms and reduce log noise.
  • Principal node election logging – Tag leadership-change logs with “principal node” or “non-principal node” to track cluster elections clearly.

Security & Governance

  • PKI-only authentication enforcement – Prevent password use for certificate-based users, eliminating password management overhead and ensuring compliance.
  • Customizable PKI username mapping – Combine certificate fields (CN, OU, etc.) into unique usernames to avoid collisions and simplify audits.
  • Zombie record prevention – Ignore client writes that would shorten a record’s TTL, preventing “zombie” records without extra client logic.

Deprecated Features

  • Deprecated feature logging – Emit metrics and log entries when deprecated server features are used, so you can identify and remediate legacy dependencies. Deprecated features will be removed in the next epic (Aerospike 9).

Upgrade instructions

You can upgrade directly to Database 8.1.0 from versions 7.1.x through 8.0.x.

Breaking changes

New public key

We have a new public key that is used to sign Aerospike Database 8.1 and tools 12.0.0. This new key will be used for other packages going forward. For more information, see Where can I get the public key for verifying Aerospike packages?.

Adding and removing namespaces in XDR

  • When adding a namespace that already ships to the destination, the info command returns the following error:

    Example
    asadm -e 'asinfo -v "set-config:context=xdr;dc=<DC name>;namespace=<namespace>;action=add"'
    ERROR:4:invalid state or set-config parameter.

    The logged warning is: {<namespace>} DC %s namespace already added

  • When removing a namespace that doesn’t actually ship to the destination, the info command returns the following error:

    Example
    asadm -e 'asinfo -v "set-config:context=xdr;dc=<DC name>;namespace=<namespace>;action=remove"'
    ERROR:4:invalid state or set-config parameter.

    The logged warning is: {<namespace>} DC %s namespace already removed

Removed the info port

We removed Aerospike’s info port, 3003, for sending info commands directly over Telnet. This should not affect any customers who are deployed with security enabled, which means the info port was already disabled. The new admin port, introduced in Aerospike 8.1, now uses port 3003.

Remove the info subcontext of your network configuration from your aerospike.conf.

Configuration items

ItemActionNotes
apply-ttl-reductionaddedIgnore TTL (time-to-live) reduction due to client writes
remote-namespacerelaxedRemoved the restriction on remote-namespace being unique across namespaces in the same local DC
addressdeprecatedDefaulting to any is deprecated
addressuse in the network.heartbeat subcontext is deprecatedInherits the fabric address
addressremoved use in the network.info subcontextRemove the network.info subcontext
auto-pindeprecatedadq value is deprecated
groupdeprecatedObsolete in systemd
userdeprecatedObsolete in systemd
pidfiledeprecatedObsolete in systemd
proto-fd-idle-msdeprecated
vault-cadeprecated
vault-namespacedeprecated
vault-pathdeprecated
vault-token-filedeprecated
vault-urldeprecated
modemulticast is deprecatedSwitch to mesh configuration

Metrics items

ItemActionNotes
ttl_reductions_ignoredaddedSee apply-ttl-reduction
ttl_reductions_appliedadded
deprecated_requestsaddedIncrements each time a deprecated feature is used

Info commands

ItemActionNotes
alumni-clear-altadded
alumni-tls-altadded
user-agentsaddedLists client versions connected to the server
config-getdeprecatedUse get-config
config-setdeprecatedUse set-config
digestsdeprecated
featuresdeprecated
partitionsdeprecated
meshdeprecatedUse get-config instead
mcastdeprecatedUse get-config instead
namedeprecatedUse node instead
objectsdeprecatedUse statistics instead
replicas_alldeprecatedUse replicas instead
replicas_masterdeprecatedUse replicas instead
servicedeprecatedUse service-clear-std
servicesdeprecatedUse peers-clear-std
services-alternatedeprecatedUse peers-clear-alt
services-alumnideprecatedUse alumni-clear-std
sindexdeprecatedUse sindex-list instead
sindex-createindexdata parameter is deprecatedUse the bin and type parameters instead
statistics/xdrdeprecatedUse the following for XDR statistics: get-stats:context=xdr;dc=dataCenterName

Also deprecated:

  • When the id parameter of info commands refer to a namespace; use namespace instead.
  • When the ns parameter of info commands refer to a namespace; use namespace instead.
  • Making an info request without a specified command.

Client API

ItemActionNotes
device_sizedeprecatedUse record_size instead
memory_sizedeprecatedUse record_size instead

The following deprecations involve internal client-server communication. The latest clients switch to non-deprecated alternatives.

  • Queries with a list of bin names is deprecated; use a list of bin read ops instead.
  • Queries with a list of bin ops which aren’t bin reads; use a list of bin read ops.
  • Use of language-encoded blobs.
  • Sending compressed size in little-endian.
  • CDT parameter protocol using 16 bit parameter count.

Server logs added

Tools updates

Aerospike tools 12.0.0 is required for some of the features in Database 8.1. See Aerospike Tools Release Notes for more information.

Client/server feature compatibility

For a complete list of client features and the server versions that support them, see the Client Matrix.

Compatible client versions

For full feature access in Database 8.1:

  • Java Client: 9.1.0
  • Python Client: 17.1.0
  • C# Client: 8.1.0
  • C Client: 7.1.0
  • Go Client: 8.4.0
  • Node.js: 6.3.0
  • Rust: 2.2.0

Compatible connector versions

  • Trino connector 1.2.0 or later
  • Spark connector 3.1.1 or later

Platform updates

See Platform support and compatibility for all currently supported platforms.

Product lifecycle updates

Database 8.1 is generally available (GA) and will be supported for 3 years. See Aerospike Database Versioning & Releases and product stages for details.

Known issues

See Database known issues reference for details.

Complete list of changes

IDDescription
AER-6799       (KVS) Improved vertical scalability of arena allocations.
AER-6806(LOGGING) Changed logging level from detail to info for resolved mesh node IP addresses when heartbeat uses FQDN.
AER-6810(NETWORK) Deprecated support for Application Device Queues (ADQ).
AER-6811(XDR) Return an error when an info command adds (or removes) already added (or removed) namespace.
AER-6819(INFO) Added user-agent-set, user-agents command to list client versions connected to the server.
AER-6820(ACL) Added support for a special password that disables a user’s password authentication.
AER-6823(KVS) Optimized performance of records with high bin counts in read paths.
AER-6824(ACL) Added network tls context configuration item pki-user-append-ou to include the certificate’s “OU” value in the username for PKI authentication.
AER-6825(KVS) Added “apply-ttl-reductions” config and related metrics.
AER-6826(KVS) Deprecated various configs, info commands, data types, and protocol.
AER-6829(NETWORKING) Created a dedicated admin port for administration purposes.
AER-6830(TLS) Changed tls-port and tls-address to require explicit values if either is configured.
AER-6832(SINDEX) Indexing based on expressions.
AER-6833(XDR) In a datacenter configuration, allow multiple namespaces to be mapped to the same remote namespace.
AER-6835(LOGGING) Improved health outliers by reducing false positives and decreasing logging level to INFO.
AER-6837(INFO) Added alumni-clear-alt and alumni-tls-alt info commands.
AER-6838(CONFIGURATION) Increased minimum data-size from 256M to 512M.
AER-6839(LOGGING) Added detailed version logging at startup.
AER-6842(FABRIC) Fixed possible crash for corrupt digest fields on fabric messages.
Feedback

Was this page helpful?

What type of feedback are you giving?

What would you like us to know?

+Capture screenshot

Can we reach out to you?