diff --git a/doc/source/index.rst b/doc/source/index.rst
index 7bfd73e..8fa553f 100644
--- a/doc/source/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/index.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Here you can find the specs, and spec template, for each release:
 
    specs/queens/index
    specs/rocky/index
+   specs/stein/index
 
 There are also some approved backlog specifications that are looking for
 owners:
diff --git a/doc/source/specs/stein/approved b/doc/source/specs/stein/approved
new file mode 120000
index 0000000..5b49399
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/specs/stein/approved
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+../../../../specs/stein/approved
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/doc/source/specs/stein/implemented b/doc/source/specs/stein/implemented
new file mode 120000
index 0000000..0372c3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/specs/stein/implemented
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+../../../../specs/stein/implemented
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/doc/source/specs/stein/index.rst b/doc/source/specs/stein/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3387024
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/specs/stein/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+=============================
+Monasca Stein Specifications
+=============================
+
+Template:
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   Specification Template (Stein release) <template>
+
+Stein implemented specs:
+
+.. toctree::
+   :glob:
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+..   implemented/*
+
+Stein approved (but not implemented) specs:
+
+.. toctree::
+   :glob:
+   :maxdepth: 1
+
+   approved/*
diff --git a/doc/source/specs/stein/template.rst b/doc/source/specs/stein/template.rst
new file mode 120000
index 0000000..b666bfd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/specs/stein/template.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+../../../../specs/stein-template.rst
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/specs/stein/approved/upgrade-kafka-client.rst b/specs/stein/approved/upgrade-kafka-client.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f83d6d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/specs/stein/approved/upgrade-kafka-client.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,193 @@
+..
+ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
+ License.
+
+ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
+
+===========================
+Upgrade Apache Kafka client
+===========================
+
+Include the URL of your story:
+
+https://storyboard.openstack.org/#!/story/2003705
+
+Currently in all Python Monasca components the copy of `kafka-python` library
+in version 0.9.5 (released on Feb 16, 2016) is used [1]_. This specification
+describes the process of upgrading the Apache Kafka client to
+`confluent-kafka-python` [2]_. This will improve the performance and
+reliability. Sticking with the old frozen client version is also unacceptable
+in terms of security.
+
+Problem description
+===================
+
+The use of `KeyedProducer` and `SimpleConsumer` in `kafka-python` library has
+been deprecated as of version 1.0.0 [3]_. Further use of this code poses a
+security risk. Additionally, profiling of ``monasca-persister`` has shown that
+most of the time is spent during the consumption of Kafka messages [7]_. Thus,
+there is a big potential on improving overall Monasca performance by upgrading
+the used Kafka client.
+
+Proposed change
+===============
+
+The wiki page hosted by Apache Software Foundation lists available Python
+clients [4]_. There are currently three actively maintained and supported
+clients: `confluent-kafka-python`, `kafka-python` and `pykafka`. Several
+benchmarks have shown [5]_, [6]_ that the client maintained by Confluent is
+both the fastest and most complete.
+
+There is significant performance improvement when using asynchronous producer
+(~50x). Sending messages asynchronously will require more care to avoid
+duplicating the persisted data but performance gain justifies that.
+
+`confluent-kafka-python` is also the only client which offers support for
+Apache Avro serialization which reduces the size of messages and thus
+additionally speeds up communication.
+
+The proposed change includes using:
+
+* `confluent-kafka-python` library
+* in asynchronous mode
+
+Code changes will affect following components:
+
+* monasca-common
+* monasca-{log,event}-api
+* monasca-persister
+* monasca-notification
+* monasca-transform
+
+Java components (`monasca-thresh` and `monasca-persister`) are out of scope of
+this specification. Client upgrading in these components should be handled
+separately.
+
+This client has an external dependency on `librdkafka`, a finely tuned C
+client.
+
+Alternatives
+------------
+
+* `pykafka`
+* new version of `kafka-python`
+* use synchronous mode
+
+Data model impact
+-----------------
+
+No data model impact.
+
+REST API impact
+---------------
+
+No REST API impact.
+
+Security impact
+---------------
+
+This change will improve the security because of removing the deprecated and
+unmaintained code.
+
+Other end user impact
+---------------------
+
+No end user impact.
+
+Performance Impact
+------------------
+
+This change should dramatically improve the performance of the complete
+solution. In particular performance of `monasca-persister` and `monasca-api` is
+expected to improve.
+
+Other deployer impact
+---------------------
+
+New libraries should be packaged and deployed:
+
+* `confluent-kafka-python`
+* `librdkafka`
+
+Developer impact
+----------------
+
+`confluent-kafka-python` has to be used instead of `kafka-python` in all
+affected components.
+
+Implementation
+==============
+
+Assignee(s)
+-----------
+
+Primary assignee:
+  witek
+
+Other contributors:
+  <>
+
+Work Items
+----------
+
+* remove code using `pykafka`
+* remove `pykafka` from requirements and lower-constraints
+* add `confluent-kafka-python` to global-requirements
+* implement common routines in `monasca-common`
+* use new code in:
+  * monasca-{log,events}-api
+  * monasca-persister
+  * monasca-notification
+  * monasca-transform
+* delete old deprecated code
+
+Dependencies
+============
+
+New packages have to be build for:
+
+* `confluent-kafka-python`
+* `librdkafka`
+
+Testing
+=======
+
+We should test the implementation using existing integration tests (tempest).
+Additionally we should test the scenario when the producer fails to receive
+response from Kafka for some of the messages in the bulk. It should be avoided
+that duplicate entries are created in the database.
+
+The implantation should be followed by executing following tests on the
+complete stack:
+
+* stress
+* endurance
+* performance
+
+Documentation Impact
+====================
+
+No documentation impact.
+
+References
+==========
+
+.. [1] https://github.com/dpkp/kafka-python/releases/tag/v0.9.5
+.. [2] https://github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-python
+.. [3] https://github.com/dpkp/kafka-python/blob/master/docs/changelog.rst#100-feb-15-2016
+.. [4] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Clients#Clients-Python
+.. [5] https://github.com/monasca/monasca-perf/blob/master/kafka_python_client_perf/monascaInvestigationKafkaPythonAPIs.md
+.. [6] http://activisiongamescience.github.io/2016/06/15/Kafka-Client-Benchmarking/
+.. [7] http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/monasca-persister/commit/?id=a7112fd30bd545dd850e0e267dcceb9ea27551ad
+
+
+History
+=======
+
+.. list-table:: Revisions
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Release Name
+     - Description
+   * - Stein
+     - Introduced