Chapter 1. Overview of Streams for Apache Kafka
AMQ streams supports highly scalable, distributed, and high-performance data streaming based on the Apache Kafka project.
The main components comprise:
- Kafka Broker
- Messaging broker responsible for delivering records from producing clients to consuming clients.
- Kafka Streams API
- API for writing stream processor applications.
- Producer and Consumer APIs
- Java-based APIs for producing and consuming messages to and from Kafka brokers.
- Kafka Bridge
- Streams for Apache Kafka Bridge provides a RESTful interface that allows HTTP-based clients to interact with a Kafka cluster.
- Kafka Connect
- A toolkit for streaming data between Kafka brokers and other systems using Connector plugins.
- Kafka MirrorMaker
- Replicates data between two Kafka clusters, within or across data centers.
- Kafka Exporter
- An exporter used in the extraction of Kafka metrics data for monitoring.
A cluster of Kafka brokers is the hub connecting all these components.
Figure 1.1. Streams for Apache Kafka architecture
1.1. Using the Kafka Bridge to connect with a Kafka cluster
You can use the Streams for Apache Kafka Bridge API to create and manage consumers and send and receive records over HTTP rather than the native Kafka protocol.
When you set up the Kafka Bridge you configure HTTP access to the Kafka cluster. You can then use the Kafka Bridge to produce and consume messages from the cluster, as well as performing other operations through its REST interface.
Additional resources
- For information on installing and using the Kafka Bridge, see Using the Streams for Apache Kafka Bridge.
1.2. Document conventions
User-replaced values
User-replaced values, also known as replaceables, are shown in with angle brackets (< >). Underscores ( _ ) are used for multi-word values. If the value refers to code or commands, monospace is also used.
For example, the following code shows that <bootstrap_address> and <topic_name> must be replaced with your own address and topic name:
bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server <broker_host>:<port> --topic <topic_name> --from-beginning
