Kafka by Confluent - Confluent Developer Skills for
Building Apache Kafka
Code: AK-DEV
Length: 3 days
URL: View Online
In this three-day, hands-on Developer training course, you will learn how to build an application that can publish data to, and
subscribe to data from, an Apache Kafka® cluster. You will learn the role of Kafka in the modern data distribution pipeline,
Kafka architectural concepts and components, and review Kafka developer APIs.
Skills Gained
In this hands-on course, you will:
Write Producers and Consumers to send data to and read data from Kafka
Integrate Kafka with external systems using Kafka Connect
Write streaming applications with Kafka Streams & ksqlDB
Integrate a Kafka client application with Confluent Cloud
Who Can Benefit
Application developers and architects who want to write applications that interact with Apache Kafka®. The course treats Java
as a first-class citizen, but students will derive value even if Java is not their primary programming language. Python, C# and
NodeJS clients will also be used.
Prerequisites
Attendees should be familiar with developing professional apps in Java (preferred), C#, or Python. Additionally, a working
knowledge of the Apache Kafka architecture is required for this course, either through:
Course Details
Hands-on Training:
The hands-on lab exercises in the course follow the coherent story of building and upgrading a driver location app. This gives a
throughline throughout the course where concepts are applied directly to a working application. Exercises are available in Java,
C# and Python.
Exercises include:
Working with Kafka command line tools
Producing driver location data to Kafka and consuming that data in real-time
Refactoring the application to use Avro and Schema Registry
Creating a Kafka Streams application to do real-time distance aggregation
Extracting a table from an external database into Kafka using Kafka Connect
Creating a full event streaming application using kslqDB that enriches driver location data with driver profile data
Experimenting with semantic partitioning
Course Outline
Fundamentals of Apache Kafka
Explain the value of a *Distributed Event Streaming Platform*
Explain how the “log” abstraction enables a distributed event streaming platform
Brokers, Topics, Partitions, and Segments
Records (a.k.a. Messages, Events)
Retention Policies
Producers, Consumers, and Serialization
Replication
Kafka Connect
Producing Messages to Kafka
Sketch the high level architecture of a Kafka producer
Illustrate key-based partitioning
Explain the difference between `acks=0`, `acks=1`, and `acks=all`
Configure `delivery.timeout.ms` to control retry behavior
Create a custom `producer.properties` file
Tune throughput and latency using batching
Create a producer with Confluent REST Proxy
Consuming Messages from Kafka
Illustrate how consumer groups and partitions provide scalability and fault tolerance
Tune consumers to avoid excessive rebalances
Explain the difference between “range” and “round robin” partition assignment strategies
Create a custom `consumer.properties` file
Use the Consumer API to manage offsets
Tune fetch requests
Create a consumer with Confluent REST Proxy
Schema Management in Apache Kafka
Explain what Avro is
Write Avro messages to Kafka
Use the Confluent Schema Registry to guide schema evolution
Stream Processing with Kafka Streams
Compare KStreams to KTables
Create a Custom `streams.properties` file
Explain what co-partitioning is and why it is important
Write an application using the Streams DSL (Domain-Specific Language)
Data Pipelines with Kafka Connect
Explain the motivation for Kafka Connect
List commonly used Connectors
Explain the differences between standalone and distributed mode
Configure and use Kafka Connect
Stream Processing with Kafka Streams
Compare KStreams to KTables
Create a Custom `streams.properties` file
Explain what co-partitioning is and why it is important
Write an application using the Streams DSL (Domain-Specific Language)
Data Pipelines with Kafka Connect
Explain the motivation for Kafka Connect
List commonly used Connectors
Explain the differences between standalone and distributed mode
Configure and use Kafka Connect
Event Streaming Apps with ksqlDB
Use ksqlDB to filter and transform a stream
Write a ksqlDB query that joins two streams or a stream and a table
Write a ksqlDB query that aggregates values per key and time window
Write Push and Pull queries and explain the differences between them
Create a Connector with ksqlDB
Design Decisions
List ways to avoid large message sizes
Decide when to use ksqlDB vs. Kafka Streams vs. Kafka Connect SMTs
Explain differences and tradeoffs between processing guarantees
Address decisions that arise from key-based partitioning
Authenticate a client app with a secure Kafka cluster
Confluent Cloud
Explain what “fully-managed” means in the context of Confluent Cloud
Authenticate a Kafka client to Confluent Cloud
Do basic operations with the `ccloud` CLI
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