Product release

Elastic Stack 5.6.0 Released

Editor's Note (August 3, 2021): This post uses deprecated features. Please reference the map custom regions with reverse geocoding documentation for current instructions.

5.6 is here!

In the recent past, we’ve made quite a bit of noise about 6.0 (tl;dr - try it, give use feedback, join the Pioneer Program.

During this release cycle, we have not forgotten about the 5.x series. In fact, 5.6.0 is an important milestone and should be treated as the ‘Upgrade Release’. If you want to perform a rolling restart from 5.x to 6.x, you will need to update your Elasticsearch cluster to 5.6.0 or higher first. Add a migration assistant to the mix, and 5.6.0 might be your favourite release (at least until 6.0.0 is available).

The hits don’t stop there. We began our modular journey with the introduction of Beats modules. This same paradigm is replicated in Logstash with both Arcsight and Netflow modules. And, we want to understand how modules impact your user experience, so fill out this survey and let us know.

As per usual, it is available -- right now -- on Elastic Cloud our favourite hosted Elasticsearch service.

Elasticsearch

For more detailed information, and many other features, peruse the Elasticsearch detail post.

  • Besides rolling upgrades, 5.6.0 comes with the latest deprecation logging
  • The Migration Assistant UI is backed by new Migration APIs in Elasticsearch X-Pack.
  • A high-level REST client for Java? Yup, it’s here.

Kibana

‘Visualize’ all the features, and ‘Discover’ more information in the detail post.

  • Prepare for your 6.0 upgrade by inspecting breaking changes to index and cluster settings plus so much more.
  • Kibana also supports rolling upgrades (run 5.6.0 or higher against an ES cluster during your upgrade).

Logstash

For more information, grok the detail post.

  • 5 mins from idea to reality. Logstash modules are here.
  • Improved setup experience via modules and performance improvements in the same release? Indeed.

Beats

We don’t ‘let the beat drop’ but we drop the updates in a detail post.

  • Filebeat 5.6 now supports the ability to load Machine Learning job configurations during module configuration.
  • Simplifying upgrade is thematic with updated mapping templates and support for a new Kibana format and API.

Get It Now!