Apache Kafka is a popular distributed streaming platform that enables reliable and scalable real-time data streaming between systems. RabbitMQ, on the other hand, is a highly reliable message broker that provides message queuing functionality. Integrating RabbitMQ with Apache Kafka can be beneficial when you want to leverage the advantages of both platforms in your application architecture.

In this blog post, we will explore how to integrate RabbitMQ with Apache Kafka using Kafka Connect in Java. Kafka Connect is a framework that simplifies the integration of Apache Kafka with other data sources or sinks.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following prerequisites installed on your system:

• JRE (Java Runtime Environment)
• Apache Kafka
• RabbitMQ

Setting Up Kafka Connect for RabbitMQ Integration

1. Download the Kafka Connect RabbitMQ Connector plugin JAR from the Confluent Hub or Maven Central Repository.

2. Create a new configuration file named rabbitmq.properties and add the following configurations:

name=rabbitmq-connector
connector.class=io.confluent.connect.rabbitmq.RabbitMQSourceConnector
kafka.topic=my-topic
rabbitmq.host=localhost
rabbitmq.port=5672
rabbitmq.username=guest
rabbitmq.password=guest

Here, we specify the connector class, Kafka topic, RabbitMQ host, port, username, and password.

1. Start Kafka Connect in standalone mode and provide the configuration file:

$ bin/connect-standalone.sh config/connect-standalone.properties rabbitmq.properties

1. RabbitMQ messages will now be consumed by Kafka Connect and sent to the specified Kafka topic.

Consuming RabbitMQ Messages from Kafka

You can consume the RabbitMQ messages from Kafka using a Kafka consumer in your Java application.

1. Create a new Maven project and add the necessary dependencies in the pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.kafka</groupId>
    <artifactId>kafka-clients</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.0</version>
</dependency>

1. Implement the Kafka consumer code to consume messages from the Kafka topic:

import org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.Consumer;
import org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.ConsumerRecords;
import org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.KafkaConsumer;
import org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringDeserializer;

import java.time.Duration;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Properties;

public class KafkaConsumerExample {
    private static final String TOPIC = "my-topic";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Properties props = new Properties();
        props.put("bootstrap.servers", "localhost:9092");
        props.put("group.id", "test-consumer-group");
        props.put("key.deserializer", StringDeserializer.class.getName());
        props.put("value.deserializer", StringDeserializer.class.getName());

        Consumer<String, String> consumer = new KafkaConsumer<>(props);
        consumer.subscribe(Collections.singletonList(TOPIC));

        while (true) {
            ConsumerRecords<String, String> records = consumer.poll(Duration.ofMillis(100));
            records.forEach(record -> {
                System.out.println("Received message: " + record.value());
            });
        }
    }
}

Make sure to update the bootstrap.servers property with the correct Kafka broker address.

1. Run the Kafka consumer application and you should see the RabbitMQ messages being consumed from the Kafka topic.

Conclusion

Integrating RabbitMQ with Apache Kafka using Kafka Connect provides a powerful solution for real-time data streaming. By following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can easily set up the integration and consume RabbitMQ messages from Kafka in your Java application.

#hashtags: #RabbitMQ #KafkaConnect