Merge branch '7.7.x' into 7.8.x

Author: ConfluentSemaphore

pom.xml

@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
     <properties>
         <!--jacoco prepare-agent needs argLine defined to set this variable. if we don't have a default set then maven gets angry.-->
         <argLine></argLine>
-        <avro.version>1.11.3</avro.version>
+        <avro.version>1.11.4</avro.version>
         <classgraph.version>4.8.138</classgraph.version>
         <aws-java-sdk.version>1.12.701</aws-java-sdk.version>
         <azure-identity.version>1.13.0</azure-identity.version>