mariadb-java-client version 2.7.2 - which is pre-installed in OpenDaylight Silicon SR1 - has a known issue when used within an OSGi container, like karaf.  It throws a java.lang.NoClassDefFound exception, looking for javax.sql.rowset.serial.SerialException

This issue is fixed in version 2.7.3.  So, we need to upgrade our parent poms to use version 2.7.3 of the mariadb-java-client and update our ODL docker container to install version 2.7.3 ourselves.