## What’s New in Spring Batch 4.2

Spring Batch 4.2 adds the following features:

- Support for batch metrics with Micrometer

- Support for reading/writing data from/to Apache Kafka topics

- Support for reading/writing data from/to Apache Avro resources

- Improved documentation

### Batch metrics with Micrometer

This release introduces a new feature that lets you monitor your batch jobs by using Micrometer. By default, Spring Batch collects metrics (such as job duration, step duration, item read and write throughput, and others) and registers them in Micrometer’s global metrics registry under the `spring.batch` prefix. These metrics can be sent to any monitoring system supported by Micrometer.

For more details about this feature, please refer to the Monitoring and metrics chapter.

### Apache Kafka item reader/writer

This release adds a new `KafkaItemReader` and `KafkaItemWriter` to read data from and write it to Kafka topics. For more details about these new components, please refer to the Javadoc.

### Apache Avro item reader/writer

This release adds a new `AvroItemReader` and `AvroItemWriter` to read data from and write it to Avro resources. For more details about these new components, please refer to the Javadoc.

### Documentation updates

The reference documentation has been updated to match the same style as other Spring projects.