diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 61f8076fe..a0bc0686a 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -2,6 +2,12 @@
 
 ## v20.04: (Upcoming Release)
 
+### configuration
+
+Legacy INI style configuration for SPDK applications has been deprecated and will be
+removed in future release.
+Please switch to JSON-RPC configuration files and/or RPC driven run-time configuration.
+
 ### ocf
 
 Update OCF submodule to OCF v20.03
diff --git a/lib/conf/conf.c b/lib/conf/conf.c
index c419b3a19..e9f4b2037 100644
--- a/lib/conf/conf.c
+++ b/lib/conf/conf.c
@@ -71,6 +71,7 @@ static struct spdk_conf *default_config = NULL;
 struct spdk_conf *
 spdk_conf_allocate(void)
 {
+	SPDK_ERRLOG("INI configuration has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please switch to JSON-RPC.\n");
 	return calloc(1, sizeof(struct spdk_conf));
 }