Apache Kafka can act as both an enemy and a friend to traditional middleware like message queues, ETL tools, and enterprise service buses. As an enemy, Kafka replaces many of the individual components and provides a single scalable platform for messaging, storage, and processing. However, Kafka can also integrate with traditional middleware as a friend through connectors and client APIs, allowing certain use cases to still leverage existing tools. In complex environments with both new and legacy systems, Kafka acts as a "frenemy" - replacing some functions but integrating with other existing technologies to provide a bridge to new architectures.

1. 1
Apache Kafka vs. Traditional Middleware (MQ, ETL, ESB)
Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?
Kai Waehner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn
@KaiWaehner
www.confluent.io
www.kai-waehner.de

2. 2
Apache Kafka vs. Traditional Middleware
Agreement:
Kafka is the de facto standard for …
• messaging at scale!
• decoupling of microservices!
• reliable, lightweight stream processing!
Controversial discussion:
Use Apache Kafka
as middleware!

3. 3
Agenda
1.Traditional Middleware
2.Event Streaming Platform
3.Enemies
4.Friends
5.Frenemies

4. 4
Agenda
1.Traditional Middleware
2.Event Streaming Platform
3.Enemies
4.Friends
5.Frenemies

5. 6
Source A
Source B
Sink X
Sink Y
Connector A
REST / SOAP
Connector X
JMS
ETL / ESB
Product
XYZ
Dream

6. 7
ETL /
ESB
Passive Server
Source A
Source B
Sink X
Sink Y
Connector A
REST / SOAP
Connector X
JMS
ETL /
ESB
Active Server
Messaging
System A
(Real Time)
Messaging
System B
(Big Data)
Database
(Important Data)
In-Memory
Data Grid
(Cache)
API Gateway Stream
Processing
Engine
Build your custom integration layer… At least 4-5 different products or open source frameworks
Another
integration tool
(because one tool
cannot integrate
everything, buy more…)
Reality

7. 8
Challenges with current integration architectures (MQ / ETL / ESB)
Zoo of technologies
• Integration platform (Extract-Transform-Load / Enterprise service Bus)
• + additional “optional” components
• Messaging System (Message Queue, Peer-to-Peer)
• In-Memory Cache or Data Grid
• Database
• Streaming Engine
• API Gateway
• …

8. 9
Challenges with current integration architectures (MQ / ETL / ESB)
Architectures with limited scalability and availability
• No end-to-end scalability (only parts are built for high volume of messages and high throughput)
• No native, built-in scalability (you cannot just add a broker to the running system)
• Broker-per-scenario (e.g. hundreds of MQ clusters)
• Active-passive clustering
• Downtime for maintenance, upgrades, configuration changes
• No backwards-compatibility

9. 10
Challenges with current integration architectures (MQ / ETL / ESB)
Tight coupling
• Platform-centric integration implementation (à no separation of concerns, vendor lock-in)
• Synchronous communication via request-response (SOAP / REST / gRPC / …)
• No handling of backpressure or unavailable consumers (push-based messaging queues)

10. 11
Business Digitalization Trends are Driving the Need to
Process Events at a whole new Scale, Speed and Efficiency
The World has Changed
Mobile Cloud Microservices Internet of Things Machine Learning

11. 12
#NoMQ #NoESB #NoETL
can handle this well!
Tight coupling, limited scale, zoo of components
You need to think event-based to realize these use cases!
You need to leverage a single, scalable and loosely coupled platform
Event Streaming Platform!
?

12. 13
Agenda
1.Traditional Middleware
2.Event Streaming Platform
3.Enemies
4.Friends
5.Frenemies

13. 14
Source A
Source B
Sink X
Sink Y
Connector A
Java
Connector X
REST
Event
Streaming
Platform
Hmm…
Yet another one of
those magic boxes
in the middle, huh?

14. Events
What is an event?

15. Events

16. 17
Events
A Sale An Invoice A Trade A Customer
Experience

17. 18
Where are they?
Events haven’t had a
proper home in
infrastructure or in code.
They are implicit.
Here!

18. 19
Implementing an Event-driven Architecture Requires a Paradigm Shift
Relational
DB
From data represented in static tables
and accessed with RPC...
...to data represented as streams of events
Apps Microservices
SaaS apps
Custom apps
Data warehouse

19. 20
Haven’t we seen all
this before?

20. 21
What’s different this time around?
(Published in 2009) (Published in 2004)

21. 22
A Streaming Platform is the Underpinning of an Event-driven Architecture
Ubiquitous connectivity
Globally scalable platform for all
event producers and consumers
Immediate data access
Data accessible to all
consumers in real time
Single system of record
Persistent storage to enable
reprocessing of past events
Continuous queries
Stream processing capabilities
for in-line data transformation
Microservices
DBs
SaaS apps
Mobile
Customer 360
Real-time fraud
detection
Data warehouse
Producers
Consumers
Database
change
Microservices
events
SaaS
data
Customer
experience
s
Streams of real time events
Stream processing apps

22. 23
Agenda
• Traditional Middleware
• Event Streaming Platform
• Enemies
• Friends
• Frenemies

23. 24
Source A
Source B
Sink X
Sink Y
Connector A
SOAP
Connector X
REST
Integration
Layer
Middleware: Message Queue… ETL… Enterprise Service Bus…
Event Streaming Platform: Apache Kafka.
Spoilt for Choice!

24. 25
Business Digitalization Trends are Driving the Need to
Process Events at a whole new Scale, Speed and Efficiency
Why do you need an Event Streaming Platform? Remember:
Mobile Cloud Microservices Internet of Things Machine Learning
The World has Changed!

25. 26
26
Fast (Low Latency)
Event Streaming Paradigm

26. 27

27. 28
● Global-scale
● Real-time
● Persistent Storage
● Stream Processing
Apache Kafka: The De-facto Standard for Real-Time Event Streaming
Edge
Cloud
Data LakeDatabases
Datacenter
IoT
SaaS AppsMobile
Microservices Machine
Learning
Apache Kafka

28. 29
Apache Kafka at Scale at Tech Giants
> 4.5 trillion messages / day > 6 Petabytes / day
“You name it”
* Kafka Is not just used by tech giants
** Kafka is not just used for big data

29. 30
Event Streaming Platform - Value per Use Case
Improve
Customer
Experience
(CX)
Increase
Revenue
(make money)
Business
Value
Decrease
Costs
(save
money)
Core Business
Platform
Increase
Operational
Efficiency
Migrate to
Cloud
Mitigate
Risk (protect
money)
Key Drivers
Strategic Objectives
(sample)
Fraud
Detection
IoT sensor
ingestion
Digital
replatforming/
Mainframe Offload
Connected Car: Navigation & improved
in-car experience: Audi
Customer 360 Simplifying Omni-channel Retail at
Scale: Target
Faster transactional
processing / analysis
incl. Machine Learning / AI
Mainframe Offload: RBC
Microservices
Architecture
Online Fraud Detection
Online Security
(syslog, log
aggregation, Splunk
replacement)
Middleware
replacement
Regulatory
Digital
Transformation
Application Modernization: Multiple
Examples
Website / Core
Operations
(Central Nervous System)
The [Silicon Valley] Digital Natives;
LinkedIn, Netflix, Uber, Yelp...
Predictive Maintenance: Audi
Streaming Platform in a regulated
environment (e.g. Electronic Medical
Records): Celmatix
Real-time app
updates
Real Time Streaming Platform for
Communications and Beyond: Capital One
Developer Velocity - Building Stateful
Financial Applications with Kafka
Streams: Funding Circle
Detect Fraud & Prevent Fraud in Real
Time: PayPal
Kafka as a Service - A Tale of Security
and Multi-Tenancy: Apple
Example Use Cases
$↑
$↓
$
Example Case Studies
(of many)

30. 31
Why Apache Kafka instead of traditional middleware?
Event Streaming Platform
The core is event-based
Supports real time stream processing
But also Fire-and-Forget, Publish / Subscribe, Request-Response / RPC, Batch, …
Single infrastructure
Messaging, storage, processing
Scalability and throughput can be increased dynamically
Reliability and zero downtime
High availability
Exactly-once semantics
Rolling upgrades and dynamic configuration changes
Backwards compatibility
Decoupling of clients
Agile microservices
Dumb pipes, smart endpoints
Handling backpressure
No vendor lock-in

31. 32
Why Apache Kafka instead of traditional middleware?
”Eat your own dog food!”

32. 33
Enemies!
ESB MQ
Storage
Streaming
Engine
Messaging: Kafka Core
Storage: Kafka Core
Caching: Kafka Core
Real-Time, Batch: Kafka Clients
Integration: Kafka Connect
Stream Processing: Kafka Streams / KSQL
Request-Response: REST Proxy
”Eat your own dog food”
vs.
Enemy 1
Enemy 2
Enemy 3
Enemy 4
…. More components, clusters, technologies means more conflicts, incompatibility, operations burden!
Enemy 5

33. 34
ETL /
ESB
Kafka Broker X
Source A
Source B
Sink X
Sink Y
Kafka Connect
Python
Kafka Connect
Java
Kafka
Broker 1
Schema
Registry
REST Proxy Kafka
Streams /
KSQL
No need for another infrastructure, cluster, database… High availability and scale handled by Kafka Topics!
Monitoring Tool
“Yet
another
Kafka
addon”

34. 35
Independent, scalable, reliable components (server and client side!)
read,
write
App
(Kafka Streams)
Kafka
(data)
More Apps
(KSQL, Connect, Python,
REST, “You-name-it”)
BookingsTeam
FraudTeam
…
MobileTeam
…

35. 39
Don’t use your “ESB knowledge” with Kafka!
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/techniques/
recreating-esb-antipatterns-with-kafka
!

36. 40
Kafka Connect
Kafka Cluster
CRM
Integration
Domain-Driven Design for your Integration Layer
Legacy
Integration
Custom
Application
ESB Connector
Java / KSQL /
Kafka Streams
Schema
Registry
Event Streaming Platform
CRM Domain Legacy Domain Payment Domain
è Independent and loosely coupled, but scalable, highly available and reliable!

37. 41
Agenda
• Traditional Middleware
• Event Streaming Platform
• Enemies
• Friends
• Frenemies

38. 42
Friends!
• Kafka Connect connectors
(JMS, IBM MQ, RabbitMQ, etc.)
• JMS Client
(Kafka-native JMS Implementation)
• ESB or ETL tools
with their own connectors
• Kafka’s Client APIs
(like Java, .NET, Go, Python, JavaScript)
• REST Proxy
• Etc.
Plenty of integration options between Kafka and traditional middleware
Traditional
Middleware
Apache
Kafka

39. 43
Why friends?
Kafka is NOT THE ALLROUNDER for every single problem!
Maybe you don’t need a scalable, reliable, distributed system,
but “just”:
• Synchronous Web Service (SOAP / WS* or REST)
integration between two endpoints
• Integration with legacy components (Cobol, Edifact, …)
• Point-to-point messaging with active / passive HA for (“a
few”) messages
• Very specific messaging solution for “less than
millisecond performance”
• Managed file transfer
• API Management
• “Real” BATCH Processing (Hadoop, Flink, Informatica, …)
X

40. 44
Legacy integration à This is where the ESB / ETL tool shines!
• Visual coding for complex
graphical mappings
• Integration components for
complex legacy standard
software and protocols
• SAP BAPI / iDoc, Cobol,
Edifact, SOAP / WS*, etc.

41. 45
Agenda
• Traditional Middleware
• Event Streaming
Platform
• Enemies
• Friends
• Frenemies

42. 46
Big Bang fails for critical 24/7 deployments
No!

43. 47
Some technologies never die… Cough…
Can we ever get away from
all legacy applications?
Probably not!
Cobol

44. 48
RPC / Request-Response… You can use the ESB for it. BUT:
REST
SOAP
RPC
JMS
Java
… it can quickly become very complex
… and doesn’t scale!

45. 49
Embrace data that lives and flows between services

46. 50
An Event Streaming Platform gives services independence
Orders Customers
Payments
Stock
Freedom to tap into and manage shared data
REST
JMS
ESB
REST
CRM
Mainframe
SOAP
…
Kafka
Kafka
Kafka
Kafka

47. 51
If you really need Request-Response with Kafka à A Correlation ID is your friend!

48. 52
Before IQ L
With IQ J
If you need to combine RPC with Streaming: Interactive Queries (IQ) (Kafka Streams)

49. 53
Confluent’s Streaming Maturity Model - where are you?
Value
Maturity (Investment & time)
2
Enterprise
Streaming Pilot /
Early Production
Pub + Sub Store Process
5
Central Nervous
System
1
Developer
Interest
Pre-Streaming
4
Global
Streaming
3
SLA Ready,
Integrated
Streaming
Projects
Platform

50. 54
Frenemies?
How to integrate
the old and new world?

51. 55
Mainframe offloading to Apache Kafka
Date Amount
1/27/2017 $4.56
1/22/2017 $32.14
Transaction Data
Vendor Description
Starbucks Coffee
Walmart Blu-Ray
Transaction Description
Integration via
- Kafka Connect (JMS, MQ)
- REST Proxy
- 3rd party CDC tool
- Etc.
Website
Client profiles
Mainframe MIPS = $$
Ability to migrate back if not working well

52. 56
MQ Integration (and later Replacement)
Date Amount
1/27/2017 $4.56
1/22/2017 $32.14
Transaction Data
Messaging Solution
(IBM MQ, RabbitMQ, etc.)
Application
1) Legacy MQ Communication with App
2) Kafka for decoupling between MQ and App
3) Direct communication via Kafka (no MQ anymore)

53. 57
New, Innovative Projects and Applications
Date Amount
1/27/2017 $4.56
1/22/2017 $32.14
Transaction Data
Messaging Solution
(IBM MQ, RabbitMQ, etc.)
Application
Kafka
Microservices
Agile, lightweight
(but scalable robust)
Kafka microservice
Big Data project
(Elastic, Spark, AWS
Sagemaker, …)
1) Direct Legacy MQ Communication with App
2) Kafka for decoupling between MQ and App
3) Direct communication via Kafka (no MQ anymore)
4) New projects and applications
(independent or related to the existing migration projects)
External
Solution

54. 58
Use the right tool for the job (and combine them where it makes sense!)

55. 60
Kai Waehner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
@KaiWaehner
www.confluent.io
www.kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn
Questions? Feedback?
Let’s connect!