Last week, Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (Amazon MSK). Amazon MSK makes it easy for developers to build and run applications based on Apache Kafka without having to manage the underlying infrastructure.
It is fully compatible with Apache Kafka that enables customers to easily migrate their on-premises or Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2) clusters to Amazon MSK without code changes.
Customers can use Apache Kafka for capturing and analyzing real-time data streams from a range of sources, including database logs, IoT devices, financial systems, and website clickstreams. Many customers choose to self-manage their Apache Kafka clusters and they end up spending their time and cost in securing, scaling, patching, and ensuring high availability for Apache Kafka and Apache ZooKeeper clusters. But Amazon MSK offers attributes of Apache Kafka that are combined with the availability, security, and scalability of AWS.
Customers can now create Apache Kafka clusters that are designed for high availability that span multiple Availability Zones (AZs) with few clicks. Amazon MSK also monitors the server health and automatically replaces servers when they fail. Customers can now easily scale out cluster storage in the AWS management console to meet changes in demand.
Amazon MSK runs the Apache ZooKeeper nodes at no additional cost and provides multiple levels of security for Apache Kafka clusters which include VPC network isolation, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), etc. It allows customers to continue to run applications built on Apache Kafka and allow them to use Apache Kafka compatible tools and frameworks.
General Manager of Amazon MSK, AWS, Rajesh Sheth, wrote to us in an email, “Customers who are running Apache Kafka have told us they want to spend less time managing infrastructure and more time building applications based on real-time streaming data.”
He further added, “Amazon MSK gives these customers the ability to run Apache Kafka without having to worry about managing the underlying hardware, and it gives them an easy way to integrate their Apache Kafka applications with other AWS services. With Amazon MSK, customers can stand up Apache Kafka clusters in minutes instead of weeks, so they can spend more time focusing on the applications that impact their businesses.”
Amazon MSK is currently available in the US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), EU (Frankfurt), EU (Paris), EU (London), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Sydney), and will expand to additional AWS Regions in the next year.
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