Apache Flink 2.3 introduces flink-s3-fs-native, a Hadoop-free S3 filesystem plugin built on AWS SDK v2. It replaces the two existing Hadoop-based S3 plugins (hadoop and presto) with a single solution that supports exactly-once sinks, RecoverableWriter, and async NIO I/O via S3TransferManager. Benchmarks show 1.85x faster average checkpoint duration and 2.17x higher throughput vs the Presto plugin, with up to 4.5x speedup at small state sizes. The JAR is ~13 MB vs 30–93 MB for existing plugins, eliminating Hadoop transitive dependencies and CVE exposure from the deprecated AWS SDK v1. Migration requires only swapping the JAR and updating config keys; existing checkpoints remain readable. Per-bucket configuration, AWS CRT client support, and enhanced observability are planned for Flink 2.4.
