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Version: 3.2

Load data using Kafka connector

StarRocks provides a self-developed connector named Apache Kafka® connector (StarRocks Connector for Apache Kafka®, Kafka connector for short), as a sink connector, that continuously consumes messages from Kafka and loads them into StarRocks. The Kafka connector guarantees at-least-once semantics.

The Kafka connector can seamlessly integrate with Kafka Connect, which allows StarRocks better integrated with the Kafka ecosystem. It is a wise choice if you want to load real-time data into StarRocks. Compared with Routine Load, it is recommended to use the Kafka connector in the following scenarios:

  • Compared with Routine Load which only supports loading data in CSV, JSON, and Avro formats, Kafka connector can load data in more formats, such as Protobuf. As long as data can be converted into JSON and CSV formats using Kafka Connect's converters, data can be loaded into StarRocks via the Kafka connector.
  • Customize data transformation, such as Debezium-formatted CDC data.
  • Load data from multiple Kafka topics.
  • Load data from Confluent Cloud.
  • Need finer control over load batch sizes, parallelism, and other parameters to achieve a balance between load speed and resource utilization.

Preparations​

Version requirements​

ConnectorKafkaStarRocksJava
1.0.43.42.5 and later8
1.0.33.42.5 and later8

Set up Kafka environment​

Both self-managed Apache Kafka clusters and Confluent Cloud are supported.

  • For a self-managed Apache Kafka cluster, you can refer to Apache Kafka quickstart to quickly deploy a Kafka cluster. Kafka Connect is already integrated into Kafka.
  • For Confluent Cloud, make sure that you have a Confluent account and have created a cluster.

Download Kafka connector​

Submit the Kafka connector into Kafka Connect:

Network configuration​

Ensure that the machine where Kafka is located can access the FE nodes of the StarRocks cluster via the http_port (default: 8030) and query_port (default: 9030), and the BE nodes via the be_http_port (default: 8040).

Usage​

This section uses a self-managed Kafka cluster as an example to explain how to configure the Kafka connector and the Kafka Connect, and then run the Kafka Connect to load data into StarRocks.

Prepare a dataset​

Suppose that JSON-format data exists in the topic test in a Kafka cluster.

{"id":1,"city":"New York"}
{"id":2,"city":"Los Angeles"}
{"id":3,"city":"Chicago"}

Create a table​

Create the table test_tbl in the database example_db in the StarRocks cluster according to the keys of the JSON-format data.

CREATE DATABASE example_db;
USE example_db;
CREATE TABLE test_tbl (id INT, city STRING);

Configure Kafka connector and Kafka Connect, and then run Kafka Connect to load data​

Run Kafka Connect in standalone mode​

  1. Configure the Kafka connector. In the config directory under the Kafka installation directory, create the configuration file connect-StarRocks-sink.properties for the Kafka connector, and configure the following parameters. For more parameters and descriptions, see Parameters.

    info
    • In this example, the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks is a sink connector that can continuously consume data from Kafka and load data into StarRocks.
    • If the source data is CDC data, such as data in Debezium format, and the StarRocks table is a Primary Key table, you also need to configure transform in the configuration file connect-StarRocks-sink.properties for the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks, to synchronize the source data changes to the Primary Key table.
    name=starrocks-kafka-connector
    connector.class=com.starrocks.connector.kafka.StarRocksSinkConnector
    topics=test
    key.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
    value.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
    key.converter.schemas.enable=true
    value.converter.schemas.enable=false
    # The HTTP URL of the FE in your StarRocks cluster. The default port is 8030.
    starrocks.http.url=192.168.xxx.xxx:8030
    # If the Kafka topic name is different from the StarRocks table name, you need to configure the mapping relationship between them.
    starrocks.topic2table.map=test:test_tbl
    # Enter the StarRocks username.
    starrocks.username=user1
    # Enter the StarRocks password.
    starrocks.password=123456
    starrocks.database.name=example_db
    sink.properties.strip_outer_array=true

  2. Configure and run the Kafka Connect.

    1. Configure the Kafka Connect. In the configuration file config/connect-standalone.properties in the config directory, configure the following parameters. For more parameters and descriptions, see Running Kafka Connect.

      # The addresses of Kafka brokers. Multiple addresses of Kafka brokers need to be separated by commas (,).
      # Note that this example uses PLAINTEXT as the security protocol to access the Kafka cluster. If you are using other security protocol to access the Kafka cluster, you need to configure the relevant information in this file.
      bootstrap.servers=<kafka_broker_ip>:9092
      offset.storage.file.filename=/tmp/connect.offsets
      offset.flush.interval.ms=10000
      key.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
      value.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
      key.converter.schemas.enable=true
      value.converter.schemas.enable=false
      # The absolute path of the Kafka connector after extraction. For example:
      plugin.path=/home/kafka-connect/starrocks-kafka-connector-1.0.3

    2. Run the Kafka Connect.

      CLASSPATH=/home/kafka-connect/starrocks-kafka-connector-1.0.3/* bin/connect-standalone.sh config/connect-standalone.properties config/connect-starrocks-sink.properties

Run Kafka Connect in distributed mode​

  1. Configure and run the Kafka Connect.

    1. Configure the Kafka Connect. In the configuration file config/connect-distributed.properties in the config directory, configure the following parameters. For more parameters and descriptions, refer to Running Kafka Connect.

      # The addresses of Kafka brokers. Multiple addresses of Kafka brokers need to be separated by commas (,).
      # Note that this example uses PLAINTEXT as the security protocol to access the Kafka cluster. If you are using other security protocol to access the Kafka cluster, you need to configure the relevant information in this file.
      bootstrap.servers=<kafka_broker_ip>:9092
      offset.storage.file.filename=/tmp/connect.offsets
      offset.flush.interval.ms=10000
      key.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
      value.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
      key.converter.schemas.enable=true
      value.converter.schemas.enable=false
      # The absolute path of the Kafka connector after extraction. For example:
      plugin.path=/home/kafka-connect/starrocks-kafka-connector-1.0.3

    2. Run the Kafka Connect.

      CLASSPATH=/home/kafka-connect/starrocks-kafka-connector-1.0.3/* bin/connect-distributed.sh config/connect-distributed.properties

  2. Configure and create the Kafka connector. Note that in distributed mode, you need to configure and create the Kafka connector through the REST API. For parameters and descriptions, see Parameters.

    info
    • In this example, the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks is a sink connector that can continuously consume data from Kafka and load data into StarRocks.
    • If the source data is CDC data, such as data in Debezium format, and the StarRocks table is a Primary Key table, you also need to configure transform in the configuration file connect-StarRocks-sink.properties for the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks, to synchronize the source data changes to the Primary Key table.
    curl -i http://127.0.0.1:8083/connectors -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{
      "name":"starrocks-kafka-connector",
      "config":{
        "connector.class":"com.starrocks.connector.kafka.StarRocksSinkConnector",
        "topics":"test",
        "key.converter":"org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter",
        "value.converter":"org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter",
        "key.converter.schemas.enable":"true",
        "value.converter.schemas.enable":"false",
        "starrocks.http.url":"192.168.xxx.xxx:8030",
        "starrocks.topic2table.map":"test:test_tbl",
        "starrocks.username":"user1",
        "starrocks.password":"123456",
        "starrocks.database.name":"example_db",
        "sink.properties.strip_outer_array":"true"
      }
    }'

Query StarRocks table​

Query the target StarRocks table test_tbl.

MySQL [example_db]> select * from test_tbl;

+------+-------------+
| id   | city        |
+------+-------------+
|    1 | New York    |
|    2 | Los Angeles |
|    3 | Chicago     |
+------+-------------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)

The data is successfully loaded when the above result is returned.

Parameters​

name​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: Name for this Kafka connector. It must be globally unique among all Kafka connectors within this Kafka Connect cluster. For example, starrocks-kafka-connector.

connector.class​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: Class used by this Kafka connector's sink. Set the value to com.starrocks.connector.kafka.StarRocksSinkConnector.

topics​

Required:
Default value:
Description: One or more topics to subscribe to, where each topic corresponds to a StarRocks table. By default, StarRocks assumes that the topic name matches the name of the StarRocks table. So StarRocks determines the target StarRocks table by using the topic name. Please choose either to fill in topics or topics.regex (below), but not both. However, if the StarRocks table name is not the same as the topic name, then use the optional starrocks.topic2table.map parameter (below) to specify the mapping from topic name to table name.

topics.regex​

Required:
Default value: Description: Regular expression to match the one or more topics to subscribe to. For more description, see topics. Please choose either to fill in topics.regex or topics (above), but not both.

starrocks.topic2table.map​

Required: NO
Default value:
Description: The mapping of the StarRocks table name and the topic name when the topic name is different from the StarRocks table name. The format is <topic-1>:<table-1>,<topic-2>:<table-2>,....

starrocks.http.url​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: The HTTP URL of the FE in your StarRocks cluster. The format is <fe_host1>:<fe_http_port1>,<fe_host2>:<fe_http_port2>,.... Multiple addresses are separated by commas (,). For example, 192.168.xxx.xxx:8030,192.168.xxx.xxx:8030.

starrocks.database.name​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: The name of StarRocks database.

starrocks.username​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: The username of your StarRocks cluster account. The user needs the INSERT privilege on the StarRocks table.

starrocks.password​

Required: YES
Default value:
Description: The password of your StarRocks cluster account.

key.converter​

Required: NO
Default value: Key converter used by Kafka Connect cluster
Description: This parameter specifies the key converter for the sink connector (Kafka-connector-starrocks), which is used to deserialize the keys of Kafka data. The default key converter is the one used by Kafka Connect cluster.

value.converter​

Required: NO
Default value: Value converter used by Kafka Connect cluster
Description: This parameter specifies the value converter for the sink connector (Kafka-connector-starrocks), which is used to deserialize the values of Kafka data. The default value converter is the one used by Kafka Connect cluster.

key.converter.schema.registry.url​

Required: NO
Default value:
Description: Schema registry URL for the key converter.

value.converter.schema.registry.url​

Required: NO
Default value:
Description: Schema registry URL for the value converter.

tasks.max​

Required: NO
Default value: 1
Description: The upper limit for the number of task threads that the Kafka connector can create, which is usually the same as the number of CPU cores on the worker nodes in the Kafka Connect cluster. You can tune this parameter to control load performance.

bufferflush.maxbytes​

Required: NO
Default value: 94371840(90M)
Description: The maximum size of data that can be accumulated in memory before being sent to StarRocks at a time. The maximum value ranges from 64 MB to 10 GB. Keep in mind that the Stream Load SDK buffer may create multiple Stream Load jobs to buffer data. Therefore, the threshold mentioned here refers to the total data size.

bufferflush.intervalms​

Required: NO
Default value: 300000
Description: Interval for sending a batch of data which controls the load latency. Range: [1000, 3600000].

connect.timeoutms​

Required: NO
Default value: 1000
Description: Timeout for connecting to the HTTP URL. Range: [100, 60000].

sink.properties.*​

Required:
Default value:
Description: Stream Load parameters o control load behavior. For example, the parameter sink.properties.format specifies the format used for Stream Load, such as CSV or JSON. For a list of supported parameters and their descriptions, see STREAM LOAD.

sink.properties.format​

Required: NO
Default value: json
Description: The format used for Stream Load. The Kafka connector will transform each batch of data to the format before sending them to StarRocks. Valid values: csv and json. For more information, see CSV parameters and JSON parameters.

sink.properties.partial_update​

Required: NO
Default value: FALSE
Description: Whether to use partial updates. Valid values: TRUE and FALSE. Default value: FALSE, indicating to disable this feature.

sink.properties.partial_update_mode​

Required: NO
Default value: row
Description: Specifies the mode for partial updates. Valid values: row and column.

  • The value row (default) means partial updates in row mode, which is more suitable for real-time updates with many columns and small batches.
  • The value column means partial updates in column mode, which is more suitable for batch updates with few columns and many rows. In such scenarios, enabling the column mode offers faster update speeds. For example, in a table with 100 columns, if only 10 columns (10% of the total) are updated for all rows, the update speed of the column mode is 10 times faster.

Limits​

  • It is not supported to flatten a single message from a Kafka topic into multiple data rows and load into StarRocks.
  • The sink of the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks guarantees at-least-once semantics.

Best practices​

Load Debezium-formatted CDC data​

If the Kafka data is in Debezium CDC format and the StarRocks table is a Primary Key table, you also need to configure the transforms parameter and other related parameters in the configuration file connect-StarRocks-sink.properties for the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks.

info

In this example, the Kafka connector provided by StarRocks is a sink connector that can continuously consume data from Kafka and load data into StarRocks.

transforms=addfield,unwrap
transforms.addfield.type=com.starrocks.connector.kafka.transforms.AddOpFieldForDebeziumRecord
transforms.unwrap.type=io.debezium.transforms.ExtractNewRecordState
transforms.unwrap.drop.tombstones=true
transforms.unwrap.delete.handling.mode

In the above configurations, we specify transforms=addfield,unwrap.

  • The op field of the Debezium-formatted CDC data records the SQL operation on each data row from the upstream database. The values c, u, and d represent create, update, and delete, respectively. If the StarRocks table is a Primary Key table, you need to specify the addfield transform. The addfield transform adds a __op field for each data row to mark the SQL operation on each data row. To form a complete data row, the addfield transform also retrieves the values of other columns from the before or after fields based on the value of the op field in the Debezium-formatted CDC data. Finally, the data will be converted into JSON or CSV format and written into StarRocks. The addfield transform class is com.Starrocks.Kafka.Transforms.AddOpFieldForDebeziumRecord. It is included in the Kafka connector JAR file, so you do not need to manually install it.

    If the StarRocks table is not a Primary Key table, you do not need to specify the addfield transform.

  • The unwrap transform is provided by Debezium and is used to unwrap Debezium's complex data structure based on the operation type. For more information, see New Record State Extraction.