Kafka Connect: Build & Run Data Pipelines • Kate Stanley, Mickael Maison & Danica Fine
Feb 21, 2025
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In this discussion, Kate Stanley and Mickael Maison, co-authors of 'Kafka Connect' and Principal Software Engineers at Red Hat, share their expertise on revolutionizing data pipelines without the hassle of custom scripts. They delve into Kafka Connect's power for real-time data flow and fail-safe reliability. The duo also highlights version 3.6's new REST API and exactly-once support. Danica Fine, from Snowflake, emphasizes the importance of community engagement in the Apache Kafka ecosystem, encouraging developers to explore the diverse use cases of Kafka Connect.
Kafka Connect empowers users to build and manage reliable data pipelines efficiently, eliminating the need for tedious custom scripting.
The authors tailored their book's structure around different user personas, enhancing accessibility and usability for data engineers and developers alike.
Deep dives
Expertise in Kafka
The guests, Kate Stanley and Mikael Mason, are both experienced software engineers working extensively in the Apache Kafka community. With backgrounds as maintainers of Kafka Connect and contributions to various projects, they bring valuable insights to managing data pipelines. Their motivation for writing the book 'Kafka Connect, Build and Run Data Pipelines' stemmed from their hands-on experiences with Kafka Connect in production environments. They recognized a lack of comprehensive resources, which fueled their desire to share the knowledge they accumulated through their professional journeys.
Understand User Personas
The authors structured the book by identifying different user personas involved in using Kafka Connect, which include data engineers, site reliability engineers, and developers. This approach allows readers to easily navigate through the content according to their specific roles—providing tailored guidance for building and managing data pipelines. By grouping chapters based on these personas, the authors ensure broad accessibility while allowing readers to dive deeper into sections relevant to their own responsibilities. This organization reflects a keen understanding of the diverse user base engaging with Kafka Connect.
Leveraging Kafka Connect
Kafka Connect is highlighted as a powerful tool for real-time data integration, capable of facilitating various use cases such as Change Data Capture and mirroring. The tool provides features that ensure reliable and resilient data flow between Kafka and external systems, mitigating the risks associated with writing custom scripts. Built-in resiliency mechanisms, such as dead letter queues and workload rebalancing, enhance its appeal over manually coded solutions. By utilizing community-supported connectors, users can streamline their data pipelines, thus avoiding common anti-patterns often seen in homegrown solutions.
Customizing Kafka Connect
The book emphasizes the customizability of Kafka Connect, highlighting that every element in a data pipeline, including connectors, transformations, and converters, can be tailored to specific needs. Users can extend functionality by developing their own connector plugins, easing the integration of diverse data systems while ensuring the achievability of complex use cases. The authors provide practical guidance on writing custom connectors while clarifying the lifecycle of connector operations to aid developers in crafting efficient implementations. This level of flexibility positions Kafka Connect as a robust choice for organizations looking to adapt to evolving data integration challenges.
Kate Stanley - Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat & Co-Author of "Kafka Connect" Mickael Maison - Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat & Co-Author of "Kafka Connect" Danica Fine - Lead Developer Advocate, Open Source at Snowflake
DESCRIPTION Danica Fine together with the authors of “Kafka Connect” Kate Stanley and Mickael Maison, unpack Kafka Connect's game-changing power for building data pipelines—no tedious custom scripts needed! Kate and Mickael Maison discuss how they structured the book to help everyone, from data engineers to developers, tap into Kafka Connect’s strengths, including Change Data Capture (CDC), real-time data flow, and fail-safe reliability.