Secure, Scalable, Supported: The Value of Upgrading to Teracloud Streams 7.2¶

IBM Streams 4.3, a leading-edge solution for real-time analytics, has reached its end of support, leaving organizations exposed to growing security, compliance, and operational risks—especially since it runs on the retired RHEL 7 platform. In contrast, Teracloud Streams 7.2, developed after Teracloud’s acquisition of IBM Streams, represents a major leap forward. It delivers modern-day security, compatibility with supported RHEL versions (8 and 9), and new analytics capabilities, positioning organizations to meet today’s challenges and scale into the future.

This upgrade is not just about staying current—it’s about transforming operations. Teracloud Streams 7.2 significantly reduces vulnerabilities with updated software dependencies, leverages RHEL 9’s hardened security and performance, and introduces flexible development features like native Python operators, Java 17 support, and new data exchange tools. These enhancements, combined with expanded toolkits and improved system management APIs, offer a compelling case for migrating to a more secure, agile, and future-ready platform.

Introduction¶

IBM Streams Version 4.3—the final major release in the 4.x series—was made generally available in August 2018. In 2023, Teracloud acquired the IBM Streams product and has since reinvigorated its roadmap, delivering two major releases: Teracloud Streams Version 7.1 in June 2024 and Version 7.2 in April 2025. These modern releases deliver critical advancements across three key areas:

• Enhanced security
• Operation on supported RHEL versions (8 and 9)
• Powerful new streaming analytics capabilities

As of September 2024, IBM Streams has officially reached end of support. This means organizations still relying on Version 4.3 are now operating on an unsupported product, typically deployed on the also-retired RHEL 7 platform—creating significant security and compliance risks.

This article presents a compelling case for upgrading to Teracloud Streams 7.2 and RHEL 9. It highlights the many advantages of moving to a secure, modernized, and actively supported platform stack that not only meets today's requirements but positions your organization for future innovation.

Security Benefits¶

The first area we'll examine is security, as it forms the foundation of any software environment. No matter how advanced a software platform's capabilities are, they become irrelevant if significant security vulnerabilities exist.

As cybersecurity threats grow more sophisticated each year, it's imperative that we elevate the standards for protecting our mission-critical environments. With adversaries leveraging increasingly advanced tactics—now accelerated by the integration of artificial intelligence—the threat landscape is becoming more complex by the day. What was considered secure just a few years ago is no longer sufficient. Without continuous updates and strategic enhancements, software systems quickly become vulnerable, putting mission-critical operations at significant risk. To safeguard against the growing sophistication of cyberattacks, it is not merely advisable—but essential—that our software environments advance in step with emerging threats. The potential cost of inaction is simply too high.

Teracloud Streams 7.2 Security¶

Each Streams release goes through an exhaustive security process to identify and eliminate any potential security vulnerabilities. This not only includes vulnerabilities in the Streams platform itself, but also in the open-source and other software dependencies that Streams is built upon. When Streams 4.3 was released, it was extremely secure, but with the passage of time, new threats have emerged.

The table below summarizes the vulnerabilities found by the latest security scans. Again, when Streams 4.3 was released, it was very secure with very few vulnerabilities. But when assessed in the context of modern-day threats, numerous vulnerabilities are found in the 4.3.1.7 version.

By comparison, security scans of Streams 7.2 revealed minimal vulnerabilities, as the platform benefits from up-to-date dependencies and a streamlined software stack. Teracloud Streams 7.2 is a secure platform in today’s security landscape.

RHEL 9 Security Improvements¶

RHEL 9 has its own set of security improvements. An upgrade to Teracloud Streams and RHEL 9 includes these enhancements in the operating system:

• Stronger cryptographic policies
• Kernel hardening
• Improved SELinux policies
• OpenSSL 3.0 and fapolicyd to enhance encryption and application allowlisting

RHEL 9 Benefits¶

RHEL 7 End of Life (EOL)¶

RHEL 7 reached end of Maintenance Support on June 30, 2024. It is now on extended life support (ELS). Running an unsupported OS increases security risks, compliance issues, and lack of vendor support.

Performance Improvements¶

Kernel 5.14+ offers better CPU & memory management, enhanced I/O operations, and improved NUMA balancing.

Updated Development Stack¶

RHEL 9 includes newer versions of GCC, Python, Java, Node.js, glibc 2.34, and GCC 11 for modern application support.

Container and Cloud Readiness¶

RHEL 9 has built-in support for Podman, cgroups v2, and systemd improvements that optimize container and hybrid cloud workloads.

Improved System Management & Monitoring¶

RHEL 9 includes cockpit enhancements, systemd-oomd, and tuned-adm profiles for performance tuning.

Longer Support Lifecycle¶

RHEL 9 is supported until June 2032, offering stability and reducing the frequency of future migrations.

Streams Enhancements¶

Teracloud Streams meets today’s security challenges and supports modern operating systems (RHEL 8 and 9), opening the door to newer programming language standards, platforms, and features, and enhanced management capabilities. But ultimately, we use Streams to run real-time analytics and AI at scale. Let’s explore the enhancements that support that goal.

New Analytic Features¶

In Teracloud Streams 7.2, you can now write native operators in Python to use within your SPL applications. This enables direct access to Python’s rich ecosystem for advanced analytical and AI capabilities.

Application Development Enhancements¶

In addition to the new support for native Python operators, Teracloud Streams 7.2 continues to support native operators written in Java and C++. Teracloud Streams 7.2 now supports Java 17 to improve developer productivity, maintainability and performance, and C++ 17 to improve code clarity, efficiency and expressiveness.

Another exciting feature has been added to assist in the development and test of Streams applications. In Teracloud Streams 7.2 you can directly inject and retrieve tuples from a running application using the new Data Exchange feature.

Also, capabilities provided in Streams toolkits continue to grow in Teracloud Streams 7.2:

• The crossdcfailover toolkit now ships with the product and provides application-level failover across two data centers enabling Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC).
• The inetserver toolkit now ships with the product and supports HTTP-Server operators and functions.
• The DPS toolkit now provides username support for Redis data stores.

Management Enhancements¶

Teracloud Streams 7.2 provides an enhanced REST API for managing domains, instances, and jobs in your environment.

Other Changes and Enhancements¶

• Keystores for domains now use PKCS12 format instead of JKS.
• PE containers now gracefully handle disconnected clients.
• Applications using Export operators better clean up dynamic connections.
• IBM JDK 8 is no longer required nor shipped with the product. Users can now use any JDK 17 or later installation from their favorite vendor.

Conclusion¶

Upgrading to Teracloud Streams 7.2 and RHEL 9 is more than a maintenance decision—it’s a strategic move toward a secure, scalable, and future-ready platform. As legacy systems like IBM Streams 4.3 and RHEL 7 reach end of life, the risks of inaction continue to grow. Teracloud Streams 7.2 offers a modern solution built for today’s threat landscape, development needs, and operational demands. With significant security improvements, expanded analytics capabilities, and long-term support, this upgrade positions organizations to innovate with confidence and meet the challenges of tomorrow.