Common Deployment Architectures with Confluent Operator¶

Install Confluent Operator and Confluent Platform provides a basic Confluent Operator and Confluent Platform deployment example. The following sections provide information about other deployment configurations.

The examples in this guide use the following assumptions:

$VALUES_FILE refers to the configuration file you set up in Create the global configuration file.
To present simple and clear examples in the Operator documentation, all the configuration parameters are specified in the config file ($VALUES_FILE). However, in your production deployments, use the --set or --set-file option when applying sensitive data with Helm. For example:
```
helm upgrade --install kafka \
 --set kafka.services.mds.ldap.authentication.simple.principal="cn=mds\,dc=test\,dc=com" \
 --set kafka.services.mds.ldap.authentication.simple.credentials=”Developer!” \
 --set kafka.enabled=true
```
operator is the namespace that Confluent Platform is deployed in.
All commands are executed in the helm directory under the directory Confluent Operator was downloaded to.

Deploy multiple Confluent Platform clusters¶

To deploy multiple clusters, you deploy the additional Confluent Platform cluster to a different namespace. Make sure to name the clusters differently than any of your other clusters in the same Kubernetes cluster. Note that when running multiple clusters in a single Kubernetes cluster, you do not install additional Confluent Operator instances.

For example, you have one Operator instance and you want to deploy two Apache Kafka® clusters, you could name the first Kafka cluster kafka1 and the second Kafka cluster kafka2. Once this is done, you deploy each one in a different namespace.

Additionally, since you are not installing a second Operator instance, you need to make sure the Docker registry secret is installed in the new namespace. To do this with the Helm install command, you add global.injectPullSecret=true when you enable the component.

Note

The parameter global.injectPullSecret=true is only required if the Docker secret does not exist in the new namespace or if a Docker secret is actually required to pull images. If you attempt run global.injectPullSecret=true to install a new component in the namespace where a secret exists, Helm returns an error saying that resources are already found.

Using kafka2 in namespace operator2 as an example, the command would resemble the following:

helm upgrade --install \
  kafka2
  --values $VALUES_FILE \
  --namespace operator2 \
  --set kafka.enabled=true,global.injectPullSecret=true \
  ./confluent-operator/

Patch the service account once the Docker secret is created in the new namespace.

kubectl -n operator patch serviceaccount default -p '{"imagePullSecrets": [{"name": "confluent-docker-registry" }]}'

If you are using a private or local registry with basic authentication, use the following command:

kubectl -n operator patch serviceaccount default -p '{"imagePullSecrets": [{"name": "<your registry name here>" }]}'

Use multiple availability zones¶

To use multiple availability zones (AZs), you first need to configure the zones values block in your configuration file ($VALUES_FILE). The example below shows three zones (us-central-a, -b, and -c):

provider:
name: gcp
region: us-central1
kubernetes:
   deployment:
     zones:
      - us-central1-a
      - us-central1-b
      - us-central1-c

Important

If your Kubernetes cluster spans zones a, b, and c and you configure only zones a and b in the yaml block shown above, Confluent Operator schedules pods in zones a, b, and c, not just a and b. Additionally, if you do this, storage disks for all pods are in zones a and b only, but the pods are spread out over zones a, b, and c.

Note

Kubernetes nodes in public clouds are tagged with their AZs. Kubernetes automatically attempts to spread pods across these zones. For more information, see Running in multiple zones.

Use Replicator with multiple Kafka clusters¶

The following steps guide you through deploying Replicator on multiple Kafka clusters. This example is useful for testing and development purposes only.

Prerequisite

Make sure external DNS is configured and running on your development platform.
Make sure you are allowed to create DNS names.

The following steps:

Are based on a GCP environment.
Use the example mydevplatform.gcp.cloud DNS name.
Use two-way TLS security.

Deploy clusters¶

Complete the following steps to deploy the clusters. Use the example deployment instructions.

Deploy Operator in namespace operator.
Deploy the destination Kafka and ZooKeeper clusters in namespace kafka-dest. Use the following names:
- ZooKeeper cluster: zookeeper-dest
- Kafka cluster: kafka-dest
Deploy the source Kafka and ZooKeeper clusters in namespace kafka-src. Use the following names:
- ZooKeeper cluster: zookeeper-src
- Kafka cluster: kafka-src
Deploy Replicator in namespace kafka-dest using the default name replicator. Set the Replicator endpoint to replicator.dependencies.kafka.bootstrapEndpoint:kafka-dest:9071. Configure the endpoint for TLS one-way security.

Configure Replicator¶

Complete the following steps to configure Replicator.

On your local machine, use kubectl exec to start a bash session on one of the pods in the cluster. The example uses the default pod name replicator-0 on a Kafka cluster using the name kafka-dest.
```
kubectl -n kafka-dest exec -it replicator-0 bash
```

On the Replicator pod, create and populate a file named test.json. There is no text editor installed in the containers, so you use the cat command as shown below to create this file. Use CTRL+D to save the file.

cat <<EOF >> test.json
{
"name": "test-replicator",
"config": {
   "connector.class":
   "io.confluent.connect.replicator.ReplicatorSourceConnector",
   "tasks.max": "4",
   "topic.whitelist": "example",
   "key.converter": "io.confluent.connect.replicator.util.ByteArrayConverter",
   "value.converter":
   "io.confluent.connect.replicator.util.ByteArrayConverter",
   "src.kafka.bootstrap.servers": "kafka-src.mydevplatform.gcp.cloud:9092",
   "src.kafka.security.protocol": "SSL",
   "src.kafka.ssl.keystore.location": "/tmp/keystore.jks",
   "src.kafka.ssl.keystore.password": "mystorepassword",
   "src.kafka.ssl.key.password": "mykeypassword",
   "src.kafka.ssl.truststore.location": "/tmp/truststore.jks",
   "src.kafka.ssl.truststore.password": "mystorepassword",
   "dest.kafka.bootstrap.servers": "kafka-dest:9071",
   "dest.kafka.security.protocol": "PLAINTEXT",
   "confluent.license": "",
   "confluent.topic.replication.factor": "3"
  }
}
EOF

From one of the Replicator pods, enter the command below to POST test the Replicator configuration.

curl -XPOST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data @test.json https://localhost:8083/connectors -kv

Verify that the Replicator connector is created. The command below should return [''test-replicator''].
```
curl -XGET -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://localhost:8443/connectors -kv
```

Test Replicator¶

Complete the following steps to test Replicator.

On your local machine, use kubectl exec to start a bash session on one of the pods in the cluster. The example uses the default pod name kafka-src-0 on a Kafka cluster using the name kafka-src.
```
kubectl -n kafka-src exec -it kafka-src-0 bash
```

On the pod, create and populate a file named kafka.properties. There is no text editor installed in the containers, so you use the cat command as shown below to create this file. Use CTRL+D to save the file.

cat <<EOF > kafka.properties
bootstrap.servers=kafka-src.mydevplatform.gcp.cloud:9092
security.protocol=SSL
ssl.keystore.location=/tmp/keystore.jks
ssl.keystore.password=mystorepassword
ssl.key.password=mystorepassword
ssl.truststore.location=/tmp/truststore.jks
ssl.truststore.password=mystorepassword
EOF

Validate the kafka.properties (make sure your DNS is configured correctly).

kafka-broker-api-versions \
--command-config kafka.properties \
--bootstrap-server kafka-src.mydevplatform.gcp.cloud:9092

Create a topic on the source Kafka cluster. Enter the following command on the Kafka pod.

kafka-topics --create --topic test-topic \
--replication-factor 1 --partitions 4 \
--bootstrap-server kafka-src.mydevplatform.gcp.cloud:9092

Produce in the source Kafka cluster kafka-src.

seq 10000 | kafka-console-producer --topic test-topic \
--broker-list kafka-src.mydevplatform.gcp.cloud:9092 \
--producer.config kafka.properties

From a new terminal, start a bash session on kafka-dest-0.
```
kubectl -n kafka-dest exec -it kafka-dest-0 bash
```

On the pod, create the following kafka.properties file.

cat <<EOF > kafka.properties
sasl.mechanism=PLAIN
bootstrap.servers=kafka-dest:9071
security.protocol=PLAINTEXT
EOF

Validate the kafka.properties (make sure your DNS is configured correctly).

kafka-broker-api-versions --command-config kafka.properties \
--bootstrap-server kafka-dest:9071

Validate that the test-topic is created in kafka-dest.

kafka-topics --describe --topic test-topic.replica \
--bootstrap-server kafka-dest:9071

Confirm delivery in the destination Kafka cluster kafka-dest.

kafka-console-consumer --from-beginning --topic test-topic \
--bootstrap-server kafka-dest:9071 \
--consumer.config kafka.properties