DOC-5223 added v1.8.0 release notes

Author: andy-stark-redis

content/integrate/redis-data-integration/release-notes/rdi-1-8-0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+---
+Title: Redis Data Integration release notes 1.8.0 (May 2025)
+alwaysopen: false
+categories:
+- docs
+- operate
+- rs
+description: |
+  Enhanced RDI operator for better pipeline orchestration, resiliency, observability and flexibility;
+  External collector support;
+  Labels and annotations to RDI data plane pods;
+  Custom Debezium image;
+  Calculated TTL for target database.
+linkTitle: 1.8.0 (May 2025)
+toc: 'true'
+weight: 984
+---
+
+{{< note >}}This minor release replaces the 1.6.7 release.{{< /note >}}
+
+RDI’s mission is to help Redis customers sync Redis Enterprise with live data from their slow disk-based databases to:
+
+- Meet the required speed and scale of read queries and provide an excellent and predictable user experience.
+- Save resources and time when building pipelines and coding data transformations.
+- Reduce the total cost of ownership by saving money on expensive database read replicas.
+
+RDI keeps the Redis cache up to date with changes in the primary database, using a [_Change Data Capture (CDC)_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_data_capture) mechanism.
+It also lets you _transform_ the data from relational tables into convenient and fast data structures that match your app's requirements. You specify the transformations using a configuration system, so no coding is required.
+
+## Headlines
+
+- Enhanced RDI operator for better pipeline orchestration, resiliency, observability and flexibility. It 
+  will also enable many new features in the near future.
+- You can now use an external collector that is not managed by RDI but writes into RDI streams
+  (Debezium compatible).
+- You can now add labels and annotations to RDI data plane pods, for example to control service
+  mesh features.
+- RDI now uses a custom image of Debezium (based on `3.0.8.Final`) to address known vulnerabilities.
+- Added support for calculated TTL for target database keys via `expire` expressions.
+
+## Detailed changes
+
+### Helm chart changes
+
+- All collector and processor values that were previously under `collector`, `collectorSourceMetricsExporter`, and `processor` have been moved to `operator.dataPlane.collector` and `operator.dataPlane.processor`.
+- `global.collectorApiEnabled` has been moved to `operator.dataPlane.collectorApi.enabled`, and is now a boolean value, not `"0"` or `"1"`.
+- `api.authEnabled` is also now a boolean value, not `"0"` or `"1"`.
+- The following values have been deprecated: `rdiMetricsExporter.service.protocol`, `rdiMetricsExporter.service.port`, `rdiMetricsExporter.serviceMonitor.path`, `api.service.name`
+- You can now add custom labels and annotations to all RDI components.
+- You can now disable the creation of the RDI system secrets.
+
+### Operator Improvements
+
+The RDI operator has been significantly enhanced in the following areas:
+
+- **Resilience**: The operator now always maintains the desired pipeline state. Manual changes or random disruptions are reverted automatically.
+- **Automatic recovery**: When a configuration issue is resolved, the entire pipeline starts automatically, eliminating the need for manual redeployment.
+- **Consistency**: A pipeline that has been stopped with `stop` will remain stopped after `deploy` or `reset`, until explicitly started again.
+- **Enhanced configuration**: You can now configure data plane components in ways that were previously not supported, such as adding labels and annotations.
+- **External collector support**: No collector resources are created for sources of type `external`.
+- **Enhanced troubleshooting**: You can now gain extra insight into the pipeline state by examining the `Pipeline` and `PipelineRelease` custom K8s resources.
+
+### Other Features, Improvements and Enhancements
+
+- Added `expire` expression for target output in transformation jobs.
+- Addressed security vulnerabilities: TLS certificate hostname verification is now ON by default.
+- Improved Helm default values while preserving `values.yaml` formatting.
+- Enhanced Helm values and templates for better configuration.
+- Added a script to create or update secrets when using Helm (`rdi-secret.sh` in the Helm zip file).
+- Improved validation schema and ensured backward compatibility.
+- Fixed compatibility issues with newer versions of `requests` and `urllib3`.
+- Improved error messages for JSON schema validation.
+- Improved PostgreSQL documentation for mTLS.
+- Added timestamps to the `status` command.
+- Fixed issues with `primary_key` and `unique_constraint` attributes in Oracle metadata.
+- Added `capture.mode` to MongoDB scaffolding.
+- Improved Helm TLS setup for RDI database connections.
+- Enhanced error handling and validation for transformation jobs.
+- Improved documentation for supported platforms and configurations.
+
+### Fixes
+
+- Fixed HTTP 500 error when querying columns with tables parameter.
+- Improved Helm TLS setup for RDI database connections.
+- Fixed keystore overwrite when using mTLS on both source and RDI DBs in the collector.
+
+## Limitations
+
+RDI can write data to a Redis Active-Active database. However, it doesn't support writing data to two or more Active-Active replicas. Writing data from RDI to several Active-Active replicas could easily harm data integrity as RDI is not synchronous with the source database commits.