Lessons Learned With Confluent-Managed Connectors and Terraform

A Data Streaming Engineer and developer advocate discusses the complexities and best practices of building data applications using Apache Kafka and Confluent Cloud, focusing on stream processing and data governance. The article details the use of Kafka Connect and Confluent Terraform Provider for managing connectors to various external systems, enabling organizations to handle infrastructure as code with CI/CD practices. A specific data pipeline is described, where data is transformed and moved from Kafka Streams to a PostgreSQL database using a PostgreSQL Sink Connector, highlighting the setup of necessary service accounts and access control lists (ACLs). The process involves transforming data formats using single message transforms (SMTs) to ensure the data is optimized for web service requests. The author emphasizes the importance of maintaining the structure of source data for reusability and provides insights into infrastructure management through a code-based approach, promoting a seamless integration and deployment process.