> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kinetica.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# 7.2 Release Notes

*Publish Date: 2024.02.11*

## Features

* **Unlimited String Support** removes the limitations with unlimited-width
  strings that were present in prior versions; now, full support for:

  * Scalar column functions
  * Aggregate column functions
  * Subqueries requiring a temporary view to be created
  * SQL operations:

    * `JOIN`
    * `WHERE`
    * `GROUP BY`
    * `ORDER BY`
    * `EXCEPT`
    * `INTERSECT`
    * `UNION`
    * `CREATE TABLE ... AS`

* [Array Type](/content/concepts/array)

  * [Scalar functions](/content/concepts/array#array-func)

    * `ARRAY_ITEM`
    * `ARRAY_LENGTH`
    * `ARRAY_LOWER`
    * `ARRAY_NDIMS`
    * `ARRAY_TO_STRING`
    * `ARRAY_UPPER`
    * `STRING_TO_ARRAY`

  * [Aggregate functions](/content/concepts/array#array-func-agg)

    * `ARRAY_AGG`

  * [Table functions](/content/concepts/array#array-func-unnest)

    * `UNNEST_JSON_ARRAY`

* [JSON Type](/content/concepts/json)

  * [Scalar functions](/content/concepts/json#json-func)

    * `JSON_ARRAY`
    * `JSON_ARRAY_APPEND`
    * `JSON_ARRAY_CONTAINS`
    * `JSON_CARDINALITY`
    * `JSON_EXISTS`
    * `JSON_KEYS`
    * `JSON_LENGTH`
    * `JSON_MAKE_ARRAY`
    * `JSON_OBJECT`
    * `JSON_PRETTY`
    * `JSON_QUERY`
    * `JSON_REPLACE`
    * `JSON_TYPE`
    * `JSON_VALUE`

  * [Aggregate functions](/content/concepts/json#json-func-agg)

    * `JSON_ARRAYAGG`

  * [Table functions](/content/concepts/json#json-func-unnest-array)

    * `UNNEST_JSON_ARRAY`

* [Vector Type](/content/vector_search#vector-type)

  * [Column functions](/content/vector_search#vector-func-column)

    * `L1_NORM`
    * `L2_NORM`
    * `LINF_NORM`
    * `LP_NORM`
    * `NTH`
    * `SIZE`

  * [Search functions](/content/vector_search#vector-func-search)

    * `COSINE_DISTANCE`
    * `DOT_PRODUCT`
    * `EUCLIDEAN_DISTANCE`
    * `L1_DISTANCE`
    * `L2_DISTANCE`
    * `L2_SQUAREDISTANCE`
    * `L2_DISTSQ`
    * `LINF_DISTANCE`
    * `LP_DISTANCE`

* **Storage Optimization** reduces size of data on disk by 50%

* **Improved Performance** in TPC-DS benchmarks versus previous versions

* *Store-only* column type is no longer supported, as it is no longer needed;
  `VARCHAR` columns marked as *store-only* in 7.1 instances will be
  automatically supported as unrestricted-width strings after upgrade to 7.2.

## Version 7.2.3

*Build Date: 2025.08.28*

### Overview

Kinetica 7.2.3 delivers a major step forward in performance, resilience, and
developer productivity. This release introduces on-disk column compression,
enterprise-grade backup orchestration, expanded support for graph querying
through PGQ/GQL, and native Kafka integration for high availability.

### On-Disk Column Compression

* Improved storage efficiency with
  [column compression](/content/concepts/column_compression) algorithms.
* Reduces on-disk footprint and accelerates query performance, especially for
  large analytic workloads.
* Transparent to applications--no schema or query changes required.

### SQL-Orchestrated Full & Incremental Hot Backup

* New [SQL-orchestrated commands](/content/sql/backup_restore) to manage
  both full and incremental backups.
* Supports hot backups, allowing users to back up active systems without
  downtime.
* Enables fine-grained scheduling and recovery workflows directly from SQL,
  simplifying administration.

### PGQ/GQL Graph Query Language Support

* Added [Kinetica SQL/PGQ](/content/sql/graph#sql-pgq).
* Support for Property Graph Queries (PGQ) and Cypher-compatible Graph
  Query Language (GQL).
* Unlocks advanced graph analytics directly within Kinetica’s GPU-accelerated
  engine.
* Supports use cases such as fraud detection, network analysis, supply chain
  optimization, and entity resolution.

### Native Kafka Support for HA Data Replication

* Built-in integration with Apache Kafka to replicate data streams across clusters for high availability (HA).
* Enables continuous, fault-tolerant replication between primary and standby sites.
* Improves recovery objectives (RPO/RTO) for mission-critical workloads.

## Version 7.2.2

*Build Date: 2024.09.21*

### SQL/OLAP

* [HNSW index](/content/sql/ddl#sql-create-table-index) support for vector
  similarity search

### Infrastructure

* Parallelized group-by output handling
* Added support for `DICT` property on unrestricted-length string columns to
  enable [dictionary encoding](/content/sql/ddl#sql-column-properties) on them

### UI

* Single sign-on (SSO) for Reveal, Workbench, and GAdmin with OAuth/OIDC

  <Info>
    Requires KAgent 7.2.2.0+ for configuration
  </Info>

## Version 7.2.1

*Build Date: 2024.08.27*

### SQL/OLAP

* Added support for remote models and table functions to generate embeddings
  using those models

* New UDF is included to automatically perform RAG across multiple SQL-GPT
  contexts to choose the relevant contexts and tables when generating SQL

* Added `KI_HINT_RECURSIVE_EXPLAIN` to show operations on materialized view
  base tables and recursively do the same for base tables that themselves are
  materialized views in any explain plan.  This supports getting an explain plan
  for a materialized view by executing:

  ```
  EXPLAIN /* KI_HINT_RECURSIVE_EXPLAIN */ SELECT * FROM my_mview
  ```

* Added new
  [system-wide, directory, and UDF](/content/sql/security#sql-security-priv-mgmt-sys)
  `CREATE` permission, as well as `CREATE` permission for
  [all object types within schemas](/content/sql/security#sql-security-priv-mgmt-schema)

* Added `KI_HINT_NO_SHADOW_CUBE` to disable use of the Shadow Cube for
  caching queries within worker processes

* Added support for the following scoped hints:

  * `KI_HINT_MATERIALIZE`
  * `KI_HINT_GROUPBY_PK`
  * `KI_HINT_NO_VIRTUAL_UNION`

  Examples:

  ```
  SELECT /*+ KI_HINT_MATERIALIZE */ *
  FROM iter t1 , iter t2
  WHERE t1.i < 100 AND t2.i < 100

  SELECT /*+ KI_HINT_GROUP_BY_PK / i, COUNT()
  FROM iter
  GROUP BY 1

  SELECT /*+ KI_HINT_NO_VIRTUAL_UNION */ *
  FROM
  (
      SELECT i FROM iter WHERE i < 100
      UNION ALL
      SELECT i FROM iter WHERE i > 1000 AND i < 2000
  )
  ```

* Added support for `KI_HINT_JOB_USER_DATA(user_text)` hint for user to
  provide the query tag that will appear in the *Jobs* list

### Infrastructure

* Reduced memory usage in head rank for unsharded group-by operations
* Optimized processing for very high cardinality group-by operations
* Improved tiered storage flexibility by allowing foreign key indexes to evict
  from RAM

### UI

* Added support in Workbench for viewing query status and metrics after a query
  is executed in a SQL block.