March 2017 Summaries

In a secured Kafka cluster, the Confluent Schema Registry needs to be configured to communicate with Kafka using an authenticated SASL mechanism, and it requires privileges to register schemas with Kafka. The schema registry must also secure its communication with clients. To achieve this, the schema registry principal is set to [email protected], and the JAAS file is configured accordingly. The schema registry needs to connect to ZooKeeper using a specific principal, and it requires authorization for write operations on a Kafka topic named _schemas. Additionally, the schema registry user must be authorized to read from this topic, and a stable group ID is crucial for Kafka security stability. To secure communication between the schema registry and its clients, HTTPS can be enabled, which encrypts all REST API calls.

Confluent is a company focused on the journey of data, rather than just the destination, playing a different game in the world of big data. The company's product, Apache Kafka, has more to offer than just a fast pipe to Hadoop, and its capabilities are being showcased at Strata+Hadoop World through various sessions and activities. Confluent is also collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make cloud services and data management easier, and will be attending Current 2024 in Austin, Texas, bringing the community together to discuss Apache Kafka and Apache Flink.

This month, Confluent Platform 3.2.0 with Apache Kafka 0.10.2.0 was released, featuring over 200 bug fixes and performance improvements. The next release of Apache Kafka is planned for June, with features including exactly-once and transactions processing, dropping support for Java 7, and disabling unclean leader election by default. Notable KIPs include adding a purgeDataBefore API in AdminClient, dropping support for Scala 2.10, and adding a peek method to the KStream DSL command. The Kafka Streams API will also receive exactly-once processing semantics and a Reset Consumer Group Offsets tooling. Various blog posts were published on data pipeline architectures, getting started with the Kafka Streams API, joining streams, monitoring Kafka streams applications, and integrating Oracle's cloud with Apache Kafka using the Connect API and Confluent REST Proxy. The Confluent Community Slack Channel is thriving, and the agenda for Kafka Summit NYC has been announced, along with a Kafka Summit hackathon.

Confluent, a company focused on building infrastructure around streams, has secured $50 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. The investment will be used to expand operations worldwide and build the vision of streaming platforms as a new category in infrastructure. Confluent is also scaling its business due to the rapid adoption of Kafka and streaming platforms across various industries. The company expresses gratitude to its contributors, customers, partners, and people for their support so far and looks forward to more significant achievements in the future.

Confluent 3.2, the enterprise streaming platform based on Apache Kafka, introduces significant updates including enhanced operational tools, new client support, and improved security features. The release highlights upgrades to the Confluent Control Center for better monitoring and administration of Kafka clusters, the addition of .NET and JMS clients to support diverse programming languages and legacy systems, and a new S3 connector for streamlined cloud deployments. The platform now offers data-in-transit encryption and enhanced compatibility, with the Control Center providing comprehensive metrics and KPIs for managing Kafka installations. Users can access Confluent 3.2 through a free open-source version or a trial of the Confluent Platform, with additional training and consulting support available. A new online talk series is also announced to explore the platform's features further.