Which tool is used for scalably and reliably streaming data between Kafka and other data systems?

Kafka Connect is a framework included in Apache Kafka specifically designed for scalably and reliably streaming data between Kafka and other data systems. It uses pre-built or custom connectors to move large data sets. Source connectors ingest entire databases or collect metrics from application servers into Kafka topics, while sink connectors deliver data from Kafka topics into secondary indexes like Elasticsearch or batch systems such as Hadoop for offline analysis. The framework manages offset commits, scaling, and fault tolerance, simplifying the development of data integration pipelines.

B. Kafka Streams is a client library for building stream processing applications and microservices that read from and write to Kafka topics, not for integrating with external systems.

C. Kafka Schema Registry is a centralized service for managing and validating schemas for Kafka messages, ensuring data compatibility, not for data movement.

D. Kafka REST Proxy provides a RESTful (HTTP) interface to a Kafka cluster, which is an alternative to the native protocol but not the primary tool for scalable data integration.

1. Confluent Documentation: "Kafka Connect is a tool for scalably and reliably streaming data between Apache Kafka® and other systems. It is a framework that comes with Apache Kafka that makes it simple to write and run connectors that move data into and out of Kafka."

Source: Confluent Documentation, "Kafka Connect Overview", Introduction section.

2. Apache Kafka Documentation: "Kafka Connect is a tool for scalably and reliably streaming data between Apache Kafka and other systems. It makes it simple to quickly define connectors that move large collections of data into and out of Kafka."

Source: Apache Kafka 3.7 Documentation, Section 8.1 "Kafka Connect".

3. Gwen Shapira, Todd Palino, Rajini Sivaram (2021). Kafka: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition. O'Reilly Media, Inc. "Kafka Connect is a framework for building and running reusable connectors that import data from or export data to external systems."

Source: Chapter 10, "Kafka Connect", Introduction.