KoP (Kafka on Pulsar) brings the native Apache Kafka protocol support to Apache Pulsar by introducing a Kafka protocol handler on Pulsar brokers. By adding the KoP protocol handler to your existing Pulsar cluster, you can migrate your existing Kafka applications and services to Pulsar without modifying the code. This enables Kafka applications to leverage Pulsar’s powerful features, such as:
- Streamlined operations with enterprise-grade multi-tenancy
- Simplified operations with a rebalance-free architecture
- Infinite event stream retention with Apache BookKeeper and tiered storage
- Serverless event processing with Pulsar Functions
KoP, implemented as a Pulsar protocol handler plugin with the protocol name "kafka", is loaded when Pulsar broker starts. It helps reduce the barriers for people adopting Pulsar to achieve their business success by providing a native Kafka protocol support on Apache Pulsar. By integrating the two popular event streaming ecosystems, KoP unlocks new use cases. You can leverage advantages from each ecosystem and build a truly unified event streaming platform with Apache Pulsar to accelerate the development of real-time applications and services.
KoP implements the Kafka wire protocol on Pulsar by leveraging the existing components (such as topic discovery, the distributed log library - ManagedLedger, cursors and so on) that Pulsar already has.
The following figure illustrates how the Kafka-on-Pulsar protocol handler is implemented within Pulsar.
The following new features are introduced in KoP 2.8.0.
- Offset management
- Message encoding and decoding
- OAuth 2.0 authentication
- Metrics related to produce, fetch and request
The following enhancement is added in KoP 2.8.0.
- Support more clients for Kafka admin
- Enable advertised listeners, so users can use Envoy Kafka filter directly
The property name of Kafka listener listeners is deprecated. Instead, you can use kafkaListeners since KoP 2.8.0.
Since Pulsar 2.6.2, KoP version changes with Pulsar version accordingly. The version of KoP x.y.z.m conforms to Pulsar x.y.z, while m is the patch version number.
| KoP version | Pulsar version |
|---|---|
| 2.8.1 | Pulsar 2.8.1 |
| 2.8.0 | Pulsar 2.8.0 |
It is highly recommended to use KoP 2.8.0 or higher because there is a breaking change since KoP 2.8.0. For details, see upgrade.md.
It should be noted that there's a breaking change from version less than 2.8.0 to version 2.8.0 or higher. See upgrade.md for details.
KoP-2.8.0.13, 2.8.0.14, 2.8.0.15 and 2.8.0.16 minor versions with Pulsar-2.8.0 have a known compatibility issue KoP-768.
You can configure and manage KoP based on your requirements. Check the following guides for more details.