Apache Flume and Data Pipelines

Apache Flume is a reliable and distributed data-ingestion tool designed to stream large volumes of log and event data from multiple sources, such as web servers, into destinations like Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), HBase, and Elasticsearch at near-real-time speeds. Originally developed by Cloudera to manage logs from web servers, Flume now supports diverse data types and integrates with tools like Kafka and Spark, enhancing its functionality in data pipelines. Its architecture consists of sources, agents, and sinks, allowing for flexible configurations, such as streaming from multiple sources to a single destination or vice versa, and integrating with various databases and analytics tools. Despite its efficacy, Flume's architecture can be complex to manage, and it is not fully real-time, with potential issues like duplicate data streaming. Nonetheless, its integration capabilities and ability to handle large data volumes make it a popular choice for organizations needing efficient log data processing.