gzurowski commented on code in PR #1469: URL: https://github.com/apache/camel-website/pull/1469#discussion_r2678636494
########## content/blog/2026/01/camel417-whatsnew/index.md: ########## @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +--- +title: "Apache Camel 4.17 What's New" +date: 2026-01-14 +draft: false +authors: [ davsclaus, Croway ] +categories: [ "Releases" ] +preview: "Details of what we have done in the Camel 4.17 release." +--- + +Apache Camel 4.17 has just been [released](/blog/2026/01/RELEASE-4.17.0/). + +This release introduces a set of new features and noticeable improvements that we will cover in this blog post. + +## Camel Core + +We have marked up important headers in various EIPs and components for tooling and troubleshooting assistance. + +If you have the need to trigger only once and are using a timer such as `timer:tick?repeatCount=1`, +then we have added the `once` component to trigger only once on startup, and made it much easier to pre configure +the message body and headers as needed. + +When using Rest DSL _contract first_ then Camel now also capture JMX performance metrics, as would happen with _code first_. + + +## Camel Test + +We have added `camel-test` modules for JUnit 6 support. + +## Camel JBang + +TODO: + +## Observability + +TODO: metrics supported added to camel-opentelemetry + +## Camel Spring Boot + +`camel-spring-boot` is upgraded to the latest Spring Boot 3.5.9 release. + +### Spring AI Integration + +Camel 4.17 introduces comprehensive integration with [Spring AI](https://docs.spring.io/spring-ai/reference/), providing four new components that bring AI/LLM capabilities to Camel routes: + +- **camel-spring-ai-chat**: Perform chat operations with any LLM supported by Spring AI. Features include prompt templates, conversation memory (message-based and vector-based semantic memory), Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with VectorStore, multimodal support (images, audio, documents), SafeGuard content filtering, structured output conversion, and token usage tracking. + +- **camel-spring-ai-tools**: Enable function calling / tool use that allows AI models to invoke Camel routes as tools during conversations. This enables building agentic AI applications where LLMs can execute business logic, query databases, call external APIs, and more. + +- **camel-spring-ai-embeddings**: Compute embeddings using Spring AI embedding models for semantic similarity search, text clustering, and RAG pipelines. + +- **camel-spring-ai-vector-store**: Store and retrieve documents in vector databases with similarity search and metadata filtering. + +Together, these components provide a foundation for integrating AI capabilities into Camel integration flows, leveraging the AI models and vector stores supported by Spring AI. + +## Java 25 + +We continue to prepare the code-base for the upcoming Java 25 release. However, this release does +not officially support Java 25, but we are not aware of any issues (feedback is welcome). +We will work on official Java 25 support later in 2026. + +There are some 3rd-party libraries that are not yet Java 25 compatible, and we are waiting for those +to release compatible versions. + +## Miscellaneous + +Upgraded many third-party dependencies to the latest releases at the time of release. + +The `camel-ftp` component now has the ability to use producer based health checks (need to enable this). + +The `camel-sql` can now dynamic select the `DataSource` (ie database) in the producer (ie `to` / `toD`). +We also made the SQL stored procedure component support named parameters like the non-stored SQL component. + +The `camel-smb` component now uses atomic move IO operations instead of copy & delete (faster). + +## New Components + +We have added many new components to this release. + +- `camel-aws2-rekognition` - Manage and invoke AWS Rekognition +- `camel-aws2-s3-vectors` - Store and query vector embeddings using AWS S3 Vectors with similarity search +- `camel-chroma` - Perform operations on the Chroma Vector Database +- `camel-cli-debug` - Remote CLI debugger +- `camel-cyberark-vault` - Retrieve secrets from CyberArk Conjur Vault +- `camel-google-vertexai` - Interact with Google Cloud Vertex AI generative models +- `camel-ibm-watson-speech-to-text` - Convert speech audio to text using IBM Watson Speech to Text +- `camel-ibm-watson-text-to-speech` - Convert text to natural-sounding speech using IBM Watson Text to Speech +- `camel-iggy` - Send and receive message to Apache Iggy streaming platform +- `camel-once` - Trigger a single message only once at startup (useful for development and testing purposes) +- `camel-opentelemetry-metrics` - Camel metrics based on the Camel Telemetry spec +- `camel-spring-ai-chat` - Perform chat operations using Spring AI +- `camel-spring-ai-embeddings` - Spring AI Embeddings +- `camel-spring-ai-tools` - Spring AI Tools and Function Calling Features +- `camel-spring-ai-vector-store` - Spring AI Vector Store +- `camel-stripe` - Interact with the Stripe payment platform +- `camel-test-junit6` - Camel unit testing with JUnit 6 +- `camel-test-main-junit6` - Camel unit testing with Main and JUnit 6 +- `camel-test-spring-junit6` - Camel unit testing with Spring and JUnit 6 + +## Upgrading + +Make sure to read the [upgrade guide](/manual/camel-4x-upgrade-guide-4_17.html) if you are upgrading from a previous +Camel version. + +If you are upgrading from, for example, 4.4 to 4.8, then make sure to follow the upgrade guides for each release +in-between, i.e. +4.4 -> 4.5, 4.5 -> 4.6, and so forth. + +The Camel Upgrade Recipes tool can also be used to automate upgrading. +See more at: https://github.com/apache/camel-upgrade-recipes + +## Release Notes + +You can find additional information about this release in the list of resolved JIRA tickets: + +- [Release notes 4.17](/releases/release-4.17.0/) + +## Roadmap + +The following 4.18 LTS release is planned for February/March 2026. Review Comment: ```suggestion The next 4.18 LTS release is planned for February/March 2026. ``` -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected]
