Azure Service Bus

This page describes the usage of the Stream Reactor Azure Service Bus Sink Connector.

Stream Reactor Azure Service Bus Sink Connector is designed to effortlessly translate Kafka records into your Azure Service Bus cluster. It leverages Microsoft Azure API to transfer data to Service Bus in a seamless manner, allowing for their safe transition and safekeeping both payloads and metadata (see Payload support). It supports both types of Service Buses: Queues and Topics. Azure Service Bus Source Connector provides its user with AT-LEAST-ONCE guarantee as the data is committed (marked as read) in Kafka topic (for assigned topic and partition) once Connector verifies it was successfully committed to designated Service Bus topic.

Connector Class

io.lenses.streamreactor.connect.azure.servicebus.sink.AzureServiceBusSinkConnector

Full Config Example

For more examples see the tutorials.

The following example presents all the mandatory configuration properties for the Service Bus connector. Please note there are also optional parameters listed in Option Reference. Feel free to tweak the configuration to your requirements.

connector.class=io.lenses.streamreactor.connect.azure.servicebus.sink.AzureServiceBusSinkConnector
name=AzureEventHubsSinkConnector
tasks.max=1
value.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter
key.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter
connect.servicebus.connection.string="Endpoint=sb://MYNAMESPACE.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=RootManageSharedAccessKey;SharedAccessKey=SOME_SHARED_ACCESS_STRING";
connect.servicebus.kcql=INSERT INTO output-servicebus SELECT * FROM input-topic PROPERTIES('servicebus.type'='QUEUE');

KCQL support

You can specify multiple KCQL statements separated by ; to have the connector map between multiple topics.

The following KCQL is supported:

INSERT INTO <your-service-bus>
SELECT *
FROM <your-kafka-topic>
PROPERTIES(...); 

It allows you to map Kafka topic of name <your-kafka-topic> to Service Bus of name <your-service-bus> using the PROPERTIES specified (please check QUEUE and TOPIC Mappings for more info on necessary properties)

The selection of fields from the Service Bus message is not supported.

Authentication

You can connect to an Azure Service Bus by passing your connection string in configuration. The connection string can be found in the Shared access policies section of your Azure Portal.

connect.servicebus.connection.string=Endpoint=sb://YOURNAMESPACE.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=YOUR_KEYNAME;SharedAccessKey=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY=

Learn more about different methods of connecting to Service Bus on the Azure Website.

QUEUE and TOPIC Mappings

The Azure Service Bus Connector connects to Service Bus via Microsoft API. In order to smoothly configure your mappings you have to pay attention to PROPERTIES part of your KCQL mappings. There are two cases here: reading from Service Bus of type QUEUE and of type TOPIC. Please refer to the relevant sections below. In case of further questions check Azure Service Bus documentation to learn more about those mechanisms.

Writing to QUEUE ServiceBus

In order to be writing to the queue there's an additional parameter that you need to pass with your KCQL mapping in the PROPERTIES part. This parameter is servicebus.type and it can take one of two values depending on the type of the service bus: QUEUE or TOPIC. Naturally for Queue we're interested in QUEUE here and we need to pass it.

connect.servicebus.kcql=INSERT INTO azure-queue SELECT * FROM kafka-topic PROPERTIES('servicebus.type'='QUEUE');

This is sufficient to enable you to create the mapping with your queue.

Writing to TOPIC ServiceBus

In order to be writing to the topic there is an additional parameter that you need to pass with your KCQL mapping in the PROPERTIES part:

1. Parameter servicebus.type which can take one of two values depending on the type of the service bus: QUEUE or TOPIC. For topic we're interested in TOPIC here and we need to pass it.

connect.servicebus.kcql=INSERT INTO azure-topic SELECT * FROM kafka-topic PROPERTIES('servicebus.type'='TOPIC');

This is sufficient to enable you to create the mapping with your topic.

Disabling batching

If the Connector is supposed to transfer big messages (size of one megabyte and more), Service Bus may not want to accept a batch of such payloads, failing the Connector Task. In order to remediate that you may want to use batch.enabled parameter, setting it to false. This will sacrifice the ability to send the messages in batch (possibly doing it slower) but should enable user to transfer them safely.

For most of the usages, we recommend omitting it (it's set to true by default).

Kafka payload support

This sink supports the following Kafka payloads:

• String Schema Key and Binary payload (then MessageId in Service Bus is set with Kafka Key)

• any other key (or keyless) and Binary payload (this causes Service Bus messages to not have specified MessageId)

• No Schema and JSON

Null Payload Transfer

Azure Service Bus doesn't allow to send messages with null content (payload)

Null Payload (sometimes referred as Kafka Tombstone) is a known concept in Kafka messages world. However, because of Service Bus limitations around that matter, we aren't allowed to send messages with null payload and we have to drop them instead.

Please keep that in mind when using Service Bus and designing business logic around null payloads!

Option Reference

KCQL Properties

Please find below all the necessary KCQL properties:

Name	Description	Type	Default Value
servicebus.type	Specifies Service Bus type: QUEUE or TOPIC	string
batch.enabled	Specifies if the Connector can send messages in batch, see #specifying-the-batching-parameter	boolean	true

Configuration parameters

Please find below all the relevant configuration parameters:

Name	Description	Type	Default Value
connect.servicebus.connection.string	Specifies the Connection String to connect to Service Bus	string
connect.servicebus.kcql	Comma-separated output KCQL queries	string
connect.servicebus.sink.retries.max	Number of retries if message has failed to be delivered to Service Bus	int	3
connect.servicebus.sink.retries.timeout	Timeout (in milliseconds) between retries if message has failed to be delivered to Service Bus	int	500