anchor.diff:  == Outlook
   
   As always, Debezium will be following its normal quarterly release cadence with Debezium 1.7 planned by the end of September.
  -There are a couple of key issues we intend to work on over the course of this version including support for Incremental Snapshots with the MongoDB and Oracle connectors.
  -Additionally, plan to explore some new buffering options for the Oracle connector's LogMiner-based implementation.
  +There are a couple of key issues we intend to work on over the course of this version including support for incremental snapshots with the MongoDB and Oracle connectors.
  +Additionally, we plan to explore some new buffering options for the Oracle connector's LogMiner-based implementation,
  +work on a tool for compacting large schema history topics,
  +expand the feature set of https://github.com/debezium/debezium-ui/[Debezium UI], and much more.
   
   In the coming week(s), keep an eye out on our https://debezium.io/roadmap/[roadmap] as we'll be refining this in preparations for Debezium 1.7.
   If you have any specific feature requests or other input for the roadmap and future releases, please let us know via the https://groups.google.com/g/debezium[mailing list]!
  
positive.code: 
  I'm pleased to announce the release of Debezium *1.6.0.Final*!
  
  This release is packed full with tons of new features such as new Incremental Snapshotting feature that can be toggled using the new the https://debezium.io/documentation/reference/1.6/configuration/signalling.html[Signal API],
  two brand new https://debezium.io/documentation/reference/1.6/operations/debezium-server.html[Debezium Server] sinks,
  one for Kafka and another for https://pravega.io/[Pravega],
  as well as several notable enhancements to the link:/documentation/reference/1.6/connectors/oracle.html[Debezium Oracle] connector which include reacting to DDL schema changes and an opt-in, incubating feature to emit `BLOB` and `CLOB` column data types.
  There's also improvements to the community-led connectors for link:/documentation/reference/1.5/connectors/vitess.html[Vitess] and link:/documentation/reference/1.5/connectors/cassandra.html[Apache Cassandra],
  as well as wide range of bug fixes and other smaller improvements.
  
  +++<!-- more -->+++
  
  Across all the 1.6 preview and the final releases, a grand total of https://issues.redhat.com/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20DBZ%20AND%20fixVersion%20in%20(1.6.0.Alpha1%2C%201.6.0.Beta1%2C%201.6.0.Beta2%2C%201.6.0.CR1%2C%201.6.0.Final)[188 issues] has been addressed.
  
  
negative.code: and link:/blog/2021/06/24/debezium-1-6-cr1-released/[CR1] releases.
  
  Since the CR1 release, we've primarily focused on documentation improvements and some bug fixes.
  But there was one last-minute feature addition, too, which allows you to specify archive log locations (https://issues.redhat.com/browse/DBZ-3661[DBZ-3661]) for the Oracle connector.
  
  Please refer to the link:/releases/1.6/release-notes#release-1.6.0-final[release notes] of Debezium 1.6.0.Final for the complete list of resolved issues as well as procedures for upgrading from earlier versions.
  
  As always, a big thank you to all the members from the community who helped with this release,
  be it via code contributions, bug report, testing, providing insight and expertise, etc.
  