Apache ZooKeeper 3.4.0 was released last week and it includes a number of updates that should make it easier for admins to better corral growing Hadoop deployments.

Version 3.4 includes native Windows version of C client, Kerberos client authentication support, and an improved REST interface, according to a blog post by Cloudera’s Patrick Hunt. Contributors also made multiple updates to client APIs.

According to Hunt:

The native windows support allows visual studio users to now compile a native client. This will increase ZooKeeper use substantially on that platform, in particular enabling client bindings other than just Java (on Unix the c binding is used to provide a number of bindings to various languages such as python, perl, ruby, go, etc…).

Kerberos authentication was initially developed in ZooKeeper to support the efforts going on in HBase to enable security for those users. However Kerberos client based authentication is now available to anyone using ZooKeeper.

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Version 3.4 also boasts improved operational support over previous versions, including a “new ‘mntr’ 4 letter word” for support monitoring, a new web-based admin interface, and support for building RPM and DEB packages.