Solace Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud¶

The fully-managed Solace Sink connector for Confluent Cloud is used to export data from Apache Kafka® to a Solace PubSub+ Event Broker cluster.

Note

This is a Quick Start for the fully-managed cloud connector. If you are installing the connector locally for Confluent Platform, see Solace Sink Connector for Confluent Platform.

Features¶

At least once delivery: The connector guarantees that records are delivered at least once.
Supports multiple tasks: The connector supports running one or more tasks.
Input data formats: The connector supports Avro, JSON Schema, Protobuf, JSON (schemaless), String, and Bytes input data formats. Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf). See Schema Registry Enabled Environments for additional information.

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Limitations¶

Be sure to review the following information.

For connector limitations, see Solace Sink Connector limitations.
If you plan to use one or more Single Message Transforms (SMTs), see SMT Limitations.
If you plan to use Confluent Cloud Schema Registry, see Schema Registry Enabled Environments.

Quick Start¶

Use this quick start to get up and running with the Confluent Cloud Solace Sink connector. The quick start provides the basics of selecting the connector and configuring it to stream events to Solace.

Prerequisites

Authorized access to a Confluent Cloud cluster on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Azure), or Google Cloud (Google Cloud).
The Confluent CLI installed and configured for the cluster. See Install the Confluent CLI.
Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf). See Schema Registry Enabled Environments for additional information.
Solace account credentials and Solace broker connection details, like the host, VPN (if needed), and JMS destination name.
For networking considerations, see Networking, DNS, and service endpoints. To use a set of public egress IP addresses, see Public Egress IP Addresses for Confluent Cloud Connectors.

Kafka cluster credentials. The following lists the different ways you can provide credentials.
- Enter an existing service account resource ID.
- Create a Confluent Cloud service account for the connector. Make sure to review the ACL entries required in the service account documentation. Some connectors have specific ACL requirements.
- Create a Confluent Cloud API key and secret. To create a key and secret, you can use confluent api-key create or you can autogenerate the API key and secret directly in the Cloud Console when setting up the connector.

Using the Confluent Cloud Console¶

Step 1: Launch your Confluent Cloud cluster¶

See the Quick Start for Confluent Cloud for installation instructions.

Step 2: Add a connector¶

In the left navigation menu, click Connectors. If you already have connectors in your cluster, click + Add connector.

Step 3: Select your connector¶

Click the Solace Sink connector card.

Step 4: Enter the connector details¶

Note

Ensure you have all your prerequisites completed.
An asterisk ( * ) designates a required entry.

At the Add Solace Sink Connector screen, complete the following:

If you’ve already populated your Kafka topics, select the topic(s) you want to connect from the Topics list.

To create a new topic, click +Add new topic.

Note

Configuration properties that are not shown in the Cloud Console use the default values. See Configuration Properties for all property values and descriptions.

Select the Input Kafka record value format (data coming from the Kafka topic): AVRO, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), PROTOBUF, or JSON (schemaless), STRING, or BYTES. Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, AVRO, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or PROTOBUF). See Schema Registry Enabled Environments for additional information.
For Dynamic Durables, select whether the connector creates queues or topic endpoints (which are used to support durable subscription names) on the message broker. For a queue destination, set this property to true, if the queue doesn’t exist already. If the queue does exist, set the property to false. The connector will fail if you set this property incorrectly.
Enter JMS Destination Name, the name of the JMS destination that messages are written to.
Show advanced configurations
- Schema context: Select a schema context to use for this connector, if using a schema-based data format. This property defaults to the Default context, which configures the connector to use the default schema set up for Schema Registry in your Confluent Cloud environment. A schema context allows you to use separate schemas (like schema sub-registries) tied to topics in different Kafka clusters that share the same Schema Registry environment. For example, if you select a non-default context, a Source connector uses only that schema context to register a schema and a Sink connector uses only that schema context to read from. For more information about setting up a schema context, see What are schema contexts and when should you use them?.
- Compression Level: Sets the ZLIB compression level for messages sent to Solace. The default value is -1, which specifies that the connector uses the JNDI connection compression level. 0 specifies that the connector uses no compression. Levels -1 through 9 enable data compression; where 1 offers the least amount of compression and fastest data throughput, and 9 offers the most compression and slowest data throughput.
- Client Description: Application description on the message broker for the data connection. Defaults to Kafka Connect.
- JMS Destination Type: The type of JMS destination. The default value is queue.
- Forward Kafka Record Key: Whether to convert Kafka record key to a string and forward it on to the JMS Message property JMSCorrelationID. Default value is false.
- Forward Kafka Record Metadata: Whether to forward Kafka record metadata on the JMS Message properties. Defaults to false.
- Forward Kafka Record Headers: Whether to add the Kafka record headers to the JMS Message as string properties. Defaults to false.
- JMS Message Format: The format for JMS message values. The default value is string.
- Character Encoding: The character encoding to use while writing messages. The default is UTF-8.
For information about transforms and predicates, see the Single Message Transforms (SMT) documentation for details. See Unsupported transformations for a list of SMTs that are not supported with this connector.
Click Continue.

Step 5: Check the results in Solace¶

Verify that messages are streaming to the Solace event broker.

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Tip

When you launch a connector, a Dead Letter Queue topic is automatically created. See Confluent Cloud Dead Letter Queue for details.

Using the Confluent CLI¶

Complete the following steps to set up and run the connector using the Confluent CLI.

Note

Make sure you have all your prerequisites completed.

Step 1: List the available connectors¶

Enter the following command to list available connectors:

confluent connect plugin list

Step 2: List the connector configuration properties¶

Enter the following command to show the connector configuration properties:

confluent connect plugin describe <connector-plugin-name>

The command output shows the required and optional configuration properties.

Step 3: Create the connector configuration file¶

Create a JSON file that contains the connector configuration properties. The following example shows required connector properties. See Configuration Properties for additional configuration property values and descriptions.

{
  "name": "SolaceConnector_0",
  "config": {
    "topics": "pageviews",
    "connector.class": "SolaceSink",
    "name": "SolaceSinkConnector_0",
    "input.data.format": "STRING",
    "kafka.auth.mode": "KAFKA_API_KEY",
    "kafka.api.key": "<my-kafka-api-key>",
    "kafka.api.secret": "<my-kafka-api-secret>",
    "solace.host": "tcps://mr83451.messaging.solace.cloud:55443",
    "solace.username": "<username>",
    "solace.password": "<password>",
    "solace.dynamic.durables": "true",
    "jms.destination.name": "<destination-name>",
    "tasks.max": "1"
  }
}

Note the following property definitions:

"name": Sets a name for your new connector.
"connector.class": Identifies the connector plugin name.
"topics": Identifies the topic name or a comma-separated list of topic names.
"input.data.format": Sets the input Kafka record value format (data coming from the Kafka topic). Valid entries are AVRO, JSON_SR, PROTOBUF, STRING, JSON (schemaless), or BYTES. You must have Schema Registry configured if using a schema-based message format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf).

"kafka.auth.mode": Identifies the connector authentication mode you want to use. There are two options: SERVICE_ACCOUNT or KAFKA_API_KEY (the default). To use an API key and secret, specify the configuration properties kafka.api.key and kafka.api.secret, as shown in the example configuration (above). To use a service account, specify the Resource ID in the property kafka.service.account.id=<service-account-resource-ID>. To list the available service account resource IDs, use the following command:
```
confluent iam service-account list
```
For example:
```
confluent iam service-account list

   Id     | Resource ID |       Name        |    Description
+---------+-------------+-------------------+-------------------
   123456 | sa-l1r23m   | sa-1              | Service account 1
   789101 | sa-l4d56p   | sa-2              | Service account 2
```
"solace.<...>": Enter the connection details. solace.host specifies the IP or hostname and port (optional) of the message broker to connect to. For a non-SSL host entry, if a port is not specified and compression is not in use, the default port number used is 55555. When compression is used, the default port is 55003. The default port for SSL connections (with or without compression) is 55443. An SSL host entry would look similar to the following example (valid schemes: tcp, tcps, smf, or smfs). For additional information, see Data Connection Properties.
"solace.dynamic.durables": Whether queues or topic endpoints (used to support durable subscription names) are created on the message broker. For a queue destination, set this property to true, if the queue doesn’t exist already. If the queue does exist, set the property to false. The connector will fail if you set this property incorrectly.
"jms.destination.name": Enter the queue or topic name to send messages to.
"tasks.max": Maximum tasks for the connector to use. More tasks may improve performance.

Single Message Transforms: See the Single Message Transforms (SMT) documentation for details about adding SMTs using the CLI. See Unsupported transformations for a list of SMTs that are not supported with this connector.

See Configuration Properties for all property values and descriptions.

Step 4: Load the configuration file and create the connector¶

Enter the following command to load the configuration and start the connector:

confluent connect cluster create --config-file <file-name>.json

For example:

confluent connect cluster create --config-file solace-sink-config.json

Example output:

Created connector SolaceSinkConnector_0 lcc-ix4dl

Step 5: Check the connector status¶

Enter the following command to check the connector status:

confluent connect cluster list

Example output:

ID          |       Name             | Status  | Type
+-----------+------------------------+---------+------+
lcc-ix4dl   | SolaceSinkConnector_0  | RUNNING | sink

Step 6: Check the results in Solace.¶

Verify that messages are streaming to the Solace event broker.

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Tip

When you launch a connector, a Dead Letter Queue topic is automatically created. See Confluent Cloud Dead Letter Queue for details.

Configuration Properties¶

Use the following configuration properties with the fully-managed connector. For self-managed connector property definitions and other details, see the connector docs in Self-managed connectors for Confluent Platform.

How should we connect to your data?¶

name

Sets a name for your connector.

Type: string
Valid Values: A string at most 64 characters long
Importance: high

Which topics do you want to get data from?¶

topics

Identifies the topic name or a comma-separated list of topic names.

Type: list
Importance: high

Schema Config¶

schema.context.name

Add a schema context name. A schema context represents an independent scope in Schema Registry. It is a separate sub-schema tied to topics in different Kafka clusters that share the same Schema Registry instance. If not used, the connector uses the default schema configured for Schema Registry in your Confluent Cloud environment.

Type: string
Default: default
Importance: medium

Input messages¶

input.data.format

Sets the input Kafka record value format. Valid entries are AVRO, JSON_SR, PROTOBUF, JSON, STRING or BYTES. Note that you need to have Confluent Cloud Schema Registry configured if using a schema-based message format like AVRO, JSON_SR, and PROTOBUF.

Type: string
Importance: high

Kafka Cluster credentials¶

kafka.auth.mode

Kafka Authentication mode. It can be one of KAFKA_API_KEY or SERVICE_ACCOUNT. It defaults to KAFKA_API_KEY mode.

Type: string
Default: KAFKA_API_KEY
Valid Values: KAFKA_API_KEY, SERVICE_ACCOUNT
Importance: high

kafka.api.key

Kafka API Key. Required when kafka.auth.mode==KAFKA_API_KEY.

Type: password
Importance: high

kafka.service.account.id

The Service Account that will be used to generate the API keys to communicate with Kafka Cluster.

Type: string
Importance: high

kafka.api.secret

Secret associated with Kafka API key. Required when kafka.auth.mode==KAFKA_API_KEY.

Type: password
Importance: high

How should we connect to your Solace cluster?¶

solace.host

IP or hostname and port (optional) of the message broker to connect to. If a port is not specified, the default port number is 55555 when compression is not in use, or 55003 when compression is in use.

Type: string
Importance: high

solace.username

Username to authenticate with Solace.

Type: string
Importance: high

solace.password

Password to authenticate with Solace.

Type: password
Importance: high

solace.vpn

Message VPN to use when connecting to the Solace message broker.

Type: string
Importance: medium

Connection details¶

solace.compression.level

ZLIB compression level for messages written to Solace. Valid values for the compression level are -1 through 9. -1 means use the JNDI connection’s compression level. 0 means use no compression. 1 through 9 enables data compression (where 1 offers the least amount of compression and fastest data throughput, and 9 offers the most compression and slowest data throughput)

Type: int
Default: -1
Valid Values: [-1,…,9]
Importance: medium

solace.dynamic.durables

Whether queues or topic endpoints (which are used to support durable subscription names), are to be created on the message broker. In case of queue destination, set this property to true if the queue doesn’t exist already, false otherwise. Setting it incorrectly will fail the connector.

Type: boolean
Importance: low

solace.client.description

Application description on the message broker for the data connection.

Type: string
Default: Kafka Connect
Importance: low

Solace secure connection¶

solace.ssl.keystore.file

Keystore of SSL-enabled VPN for Solace.

Type: password
Default: [hidden]
Importance: medium

solace.ssl.keystore.password

Keystore password for SSL-enabled VPN for Solace.

Type: password
Importance: medium

solace.ssl.truststore.file

Truststore containing server CA certificate for SSL-enabled VPN for Solace.

Type: password
Default: [hidden]
Importance: medium

solace.ssl.truststore.password

Truststore password for SSL-enabled VPN for Solace.

Type: password
Importance: medium

solace.ssl.validate.certificate

Whether to validate the SSL certificates.

Type: boolean
Default: true
Importance: medium

JMS details¶

jms.destination.name

The name of the JMS destination that messages are written to.

Type: string
Importance: high

jms.destination.type

The type of JMS destination.

Type: string
Default: queue
Importance: high

jms.forward.kafka.key

Convert the Kafka record key to a string and forward it on the JMS Message property JMSCorrelationID.

Type: boolean
Default: false
Importance: low

jms.forward.kafka.metadata

Forward the Kafka record metadata on the JMS Message properties. This includes the record topic, partition, and offset.

Type: boolean
Default: false
Importance: low

jms.forward.kafka.headers

Add the Kafka record headers to the JMS Message as string properties.

Type: boolean
Default: false
Importance: low

JMS formatter¶

jms.message.format

The format of JMS message values.

Type: string
Default: string
Importance: high

character.encoding

The character encoding to use while writing the message.

Type: string
Default: UTF-8
Importance: low

Consumer configuration¶

max.poll.interval.ms

The maximum delay between subsequent consume requests to Kafka. This configuration property may be used to improve the performance of the connector, if the connector cannot send records to the sink system. Defaults to 300000 milliseconds (5 minutes).

Type: long
Default: 300000 (5 minutes)
Valid Values: [60000,…,1800000]
Importance: low

max.poll.records

The maximum number of records to consume from Kafka in a single request. This configuration property may be used to improve the performance of the connector, if the connector cannot send records to the sink system. Defaults to 500 records.

Type: long
Default: 500
Valid Values: [1,…,500]
Importance: low

Number of tasks for this connector¶

tasks.max

Maximum number of tasks for the connector.

Type: int
Valid Values: [1,…]
Importance: high

Next Steps¶

For an example that shows fully-managed Confluent Cloud connectors in action with Confluent Cloud ksqlDB, see the Cloud ETL Demo. This example also shows how to use Confluent CLI to manage your resources in Confluent Cloud.