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Kafka Connect Tutorial

What is Kafka Connect?

Kafka Connect is a tool for scalably and reliably streaming data between Apache Kafka and other systems. It is part of the Apache Kafka ecosystem and simplifies the process of integrating Kafka with external systems, such as databases, key-value stores, search indexes, and file systems.

Core Concepts of Kafka Connect

Kafka Connect operates on a few core concepts:

  • Connector: A plugin that defines how data is imported to or exported from Kafka. There are two types of connectors:
    • Source Connector: Imports data from an external system into Kafka.
    • Sink Connector: Exports data from Kafka to an external system.
  • Task: A unit of work for a connector. Each task is responsible for a portion of the data movement.
  • Configuration: Connectors and tasks are configured using JSON format. This configuration specifies how the connector interacts with the source or sink systems.

Setting Up Kafka Connect

To get started with Kafka Connect, you need to have Apache Kafka installed. Once Kafka is set up and running, you can launch Kafka Connect. Here’s how:

1. Start the Kafka server:

bin/kafka-server-start.sh config/server.properties

2. Start the Kafka Connect service:

bin/connect-standalone.sh config/connect-standalone.properties config/my-connector.properties

Creating a Source Connector

Here’s an example of how to create a simple source connector that reads data from a file and sends it to a Kafka topic:

Sample configuration for a file source connector:

name=my-file-source-connector
connector.class=FileStreamSource
tasks.max=1
file=/path/to/input.txt
topic=my-topic

After creating this configuration file (e.g., my-connector.properties), you can start the connector using:

bin/connect-standalone.sh config/connect-standalone.properties config/my-connector.properties

Creating a Sink Connector

To create a sink connector that exports data from Kafka to a database, you can use the following configuration:

Sample configuration for a JDBC sink connector:

name=my-jdbc-sink-connector
connector.class=io.confluent.connect.jdbc.JdbcSinkConnector
tasks.max=1
topics=my-topic
connection.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydb
auto.create=true
insert.mode=insert

Save the above configuration in a file (e.g., jdbc-sink.properties) and run it using:

bin/connect-standalone.sh config/connect-standalone.properties config/jdbc-sink.properties

Monitoring and Managing Kafka Connect

Kafka Connect provides a REST API for managing and monitoring connectors. You can use the following endpoints:

  • List Connectors: GET /connectors
  • Get Connector Status: GET /connectors/{connector-name}/status
  • Pause/Resume a Connector: POST /connectors/{connector-name}/pause or POST /connectors/{connector-name}/resume

Example command to check the status of a connector:

curl -X GET http://localhost:8083/connectors/my-file-source-connector/status

Conclusion

Kafka Connect is a powerful tool for integrating Kafka with various data sources and sinks. By understanding its core concepts and configurations, you can efficiently set up data pipelines that move data into and out of Kafka.