December 2018 Summaries

The Confluent Community License is a new licensing model adopted by Confluent Platform, replacing the Apache 2.0 license for some components. The main goal of this change was to provide more flexibility and control over how the software can be used. The license restricts certain competitive use cases, but these restrictions are intended to apply only to specific scenarios where using Confluent's software would directly compete with their products or services. This means that users can still access, modify, and redistribute the source code under the new license, as long as they do not create competing SaaS offerings. The Confluent Community License is a "source-available" license, which grants most of the same rights as Apache 2.0, but with specific exclusions to prevent direct competition with Confluent's products.

Confluent Cloud provides an easy way to get started with Apache Kafka by creating a cluster in just three minutes and nine seconds. With Confluent Cloud, users can learn the APIs by writing a small application and create data pipelines that transform events and load them into external systems like Google BigQuery. As users progress, they can run KSQL servers, connect their applications to Confluent Cloud, and use Terraform automation to spin up additional components like Confluent Schema Registry and connectors. To ensure successful production rollouts, users need to monitor cluster capabilities and limitations, manage security and network usage, and integrate on-prem clusters with Confluent Cloud. With the general availability of Confluent Platform 7.7, users can take advantage of enhanced security features like OAuth support, a new connector, and more.

Confluent is changing the license for some components of its Confluent Platform from Apache 2.0 to the Confluent Community License, which allows free downloading, modification, and redistribution but prohibits providing the software as a SaaS offering. This change aims to sustain ongoing investment in open source projects while maintaining a healthy business that funds this development. The new license does not affect Apache Kafka, which remains under the Apache 2.0 license. Confluent believes that business can help fund a virtuous cycle of open source contribution and that this licensing change will ensure small open source communities are not acting as unsustainable R&D for tech giants.

The text outlines the benefits and execution model of using Kafka Streams for stream processing applications, emphasizing its integration with Apache Kafka to simplify the deployment and scalability of such applications without needing a separate processing cluster. It introduces ksqlDB, a database built atop Kafka Streams, designed to lower the technical entry barrier for stream processing by allowing SQL-like queries to be compiled into Kafka Streams applications. The text explains the deployment options for ksqlDB, including headless mode for production environments and interactive mode for real-time query interaction, highlighting how both modes leverage Kafka's capabilities for distributed processing, fault tolerance, and scalability. It concludes by discussing potential future enhancements for ksqlDB, such as query optimization and multi-query processing, and invites interested individuals to explore career opportunities with Confluent.

The upcoming Kafka Summit events will feature three conferences in 2019, including a fall event in San Francisco, and two spring events in New York and London. The events aim to bring together the most advanced thinking on stream processing, with tracks focused on Core Kafka, Streaming Applications, Use Cases, and developer submissions. To help newcomers share their knowledge, online office hours will be held to assist with crafting a strong talk submission. Additionally, the 2019 Kafka Summit dates are set for September 17-18 in Austin, Texas, where the Current 2024 event will take place, alongside Confluent's collaboration with AWS on cloud services and data management.

The principle of least privilege dictates that each user and application will have the minimal privileges required to do their job when applied to Apache Kafka and its Streams API, balancing developer velocity and security. Organizations need to configure proper privileges for their Kafka Streams applications using two simple patterns: one provides tighter security, while the other offers more agility and development velocity. By defining a prefix for internal topics used by an application, developers can grant the necessary read/write/create access to all topics with that prefix, simplifying access control and reducing errors. This approach applies to both Kafka Streams and KSQL applications, allowing organizations to configure privileges efficiently and securely.