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Stream processing with Apache Kafka and Databricks

This article describes how you can use Apache Kafka as either a source or a sink when running Structured Streaming workloads on Databricks.

For more Kafka, see the Kafka documentation.

Read data from Kafka​

The following is an example for a streaming read from Kafka:

Python
df = (spark.readStream
  .format("kafka")
  .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", "<server:ip>")
  .option("subscribe", "<topic>")
  .option("startingOffsets", "latest")
  .load()
)

Databricks also supports batch read semantics for Kafka data sources, as shown in the following example:

Python
df = (spark
  .read
  .format("kafka")
  .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", "<server:ip>")
  .option("subscribe", "<topic>")
  .option("startingOffsets", "earliest")
  .option("endingOffsets", "latest")
  .load()
)

For incremental batch loading, Databricks recommends using Kafka with Trigger.AvailableNow. See Configuring incremental batch processing.

In Databricks Runtime 13.3 LTS and above, Databricks provides a SQL function for reading Kafka data. Streaming with SQL is supported only in DLT or with streaming tables in Databricks SQL. See read_kafka table-valued function.

Configure Kafka Structured Streaming reader​

Databricks provides the kafka keyword as a data format to configure connections to Kafka 0.10+.

The following are the most common configurations for Kafka:

There are multiple ways of specifying which topics to subscribe to. You should provide only one of these parameters:

Option

Value

Description

subscribe

A comma-separated list of topics.

The topic list to subscribe to.

subscribePattern

Java regex string.

The pattern used to subscribe to topic(s).

assign

JSON string {"topicA":[0,1],"topic":[2,4]}.

Specific topicPartitions to consume.

Other notable configurations:

Option

Value

Default Value

Description

kafka.bootstrap.servers

Comma-separated list of host:port.

empty

[Required] The Kafka bootstrap.servers configuration. If you find there is no data from Kafka, check the broker address list first. If the broker address list is incorrect, there might not be any errors. This is because Kafka client assumes the brokers will become available eventually and in the event of network errors retry forever.

failOnDataLoss

true or false.

true

[Optional] Whether to fail the query when it's possible that data was lost. Queries can permanently fail to read data from Kafka due to many scenarios such as deleted topics, topic truncation before processing, and so on. We try to estimate conservatively whether data was possibly lost or not. Sometimes this can cause false alarms. Set this option to false if it does not work as expected, or you want the query to continue processing despite data loss.

minPartitions

Integer >= 0, 0 = disabled.

0 (disabled)

[Optional] Minimum number of partitions to read from Kafka. You can configure Spark to use an arbitrary minimum of partitions to read from Kafka using the minPartitions option. Normally Spark has a 1-1 mapping of Kafka topicPartitions to Spark partitions consuming from Kafka. If you set the minPartitions option to a value greater than your Kafka topicPartitions, Spark will divvy up large Kafka partitions to smaller pieces. This option can be set at times of peak loads, data skew, and as your stream is falling behind to increase processing rate. It comes at a cost of initializing Kafka consumers at each trigger, which may impact performance if you use SSL when connecting to Kafka.

kafka.group.id

A Kafka consumer group ID.

not set

[Optional] Group ID to use while reading from Kafka. Use this with caution. By default, each query generates a unique group ID for reading data. This ensures that each query has its own consumer group that does not face interference from any other consumer, and therefore can read all of the partitions of its subscribed topics. In some scenarios (for example, Kafka group-based authorization), you may want to use specific authorized group IDs to read data. You can optionally set the group ID. However, do this with extreme caution as it can cause unexpected behavior.

  • Concurrently running queries (both, batch and streaming) with the same group ID are likely interfere with each other causing each query to read only part of the data.
  • This may also occur when queries are started/restarted in quick succession. To minimize such issues, set the Kafka consumer configuration session.timeout.ms to be very small.

startingOffsets

earliest , latest

latest

[Optional] The start point when a query is started, either “earliest” which is from the earliest offsets, or a json string specifying a starting offset for each TopicPartition. In the json, -2 as an offset can be used to refer to earliest, -1 to latest. Note: For batch queries, latest (either implicitly or by using -1 in json) is not allowed. For streaming queries, this only applies when a new query is started, and that resuming will always pick up from where the query left off. Newly discovered partitions during a query will start at earliest.

See Structured Streaming Kafka Integration Guide for other optional configurations.

Schema for Kafka records​

The schema of Kafka records is:

Column

Type

key

binary

value

binary

topic

string

partition

int

offset

long

timestamp

long

timestampType

int

The key and the value are always deserialized as byte arrays with the ByteArrayDeserializer. Use DataFrame operations (such as cast("string")) to explicitly deserialize the keys and values.

Write data to Kafka​

The following is an example for a streaming write to Kafka:

Python
(df
  .writeStream
  .format("kafka")
  .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", "<server:ip>")
  .option("topic", "<topic>")
  .start()
)

Databricks also supports batch write semantics to Kafka data sinks, as shown in the following example:

Python
(df
  .write
  .format("kafka")
  .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", "<server:ip>")
  .option("topic", "<topic>")
  .save()
)

Configure the Kafka Structured Streaming writer​

important

Databricks Runtime 13.3 LTS and above includes a newer version of the kafka-clients library that enables idempotent writes by default. If a Kafka sink uses version 2.8.0 or below with ACLs configured, but without IDEMPOTENT_WRITE enabled, the write fails with the error message org.apache.kafka.common.KafkaException: Cannot execute transactional method because we are in an error state.

Resolve this error by upgrading to Kafka version 2.8.0 or above, or by setting .option(“kafka.enable.idempotence”, “false”) while configuring your Structured Streaming writer.

The schema provided to the DataStreamWriter interacts with the Kafka sink. You can use the following fields:

Column name

Required or optional

Type

key

optional

STRING or BINARY

value

required

STRING or BINARY

headers

optional

ARRAY

topic

optional (ignored if topic is set as writer option)

STRING

partition

optional

INT

The following are common options set while writing to Kafka:

Option

Value

Default value

Description

kafka.boostrap.servers

A comma-separated list of <host:port>

none

[Required] The Kafka bootstrap.servers configuration.

topic

STRING

not set

[Optional] Sets the topic for all rows to be written. This option overrides any topic column that exists in the data.

includeHeaders

BOOLEAN

false

[Optional] Whether to include the Kafka headers in the row.

See Structured Streaming Kafka Integration Guide for other optional configurations.

Retrieve Kafka metrics​

You can get the average, min, and max of the number of offsets that the streaming query is behind the latest available offset among all the subscribed topics with the avgOffsetsBehindLatest, maxOffsetsBehindLatest, and minOffsetsBehindLatest metrics. See Reading Metrics Interactively.

note

Available in Databricks Runtime 9.1 and above.

Get the estimated total number of bytes that the query process has not consumed from the subscribed topics by examining the value of estimatedTotalBytesBehindLatest. This estimate is based on the batches that were processed in the last 300 seconds. The timeframe that the estimate is based on can be changed by setting the option bytesEstimateWindowLength to a different value. For example, to set it to 10 minutes:

Python
df = (spark.readStream
  .format("kafka")
  .option("bytesEstimateWindowLength", "10m") # m for minutes, you can also use "600s" for 600 seconds
)

If you are running the stream in a notebook, you can see these metrics under the Raw Data tab in the streaming query progress dashboard:

JSON
{
  "sources": [
    {
      "description": "KafkaV2[Subscribe[topic]]",
      "metrics": {
        "avgOffsetsBehindLatest": "4.0",
        "maxOffsetsBehindLatest": "4",
        "minOffsetsBehindLatest": "4",
        "estimatedTotalBytesBehindLatest": "80.0"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Use SSL to connect Databricks to Kafka​

To enable SSL connections to Kafka, follow the instructions in the Confluent documentation Encryption and Authentication with SSL. You can provide the configurations described there, prefixed with kafka., as options. For example, you specify the trust store location in the property kafka.ssl.truststore.location.

Databricks recommends that you:

The following example uses object storage locations and Databricks secrets to enable an SSL connection:

Python
df = (spark.readStream
  .format("kafka")
  .option("kafka.bootstrap.servers", ...)
  .option("kafka.security.protocol", "SASL_SSL")
  .option("kafka.ssl.truststore.location", <truststore-location>)
  .option("kafka.ssl.keystore.location", <keystore-location>)
  .option("kafka.ssl.keystore.password", dbutils.secrets.get(scope=<certificate-scope-name>,key=<keystore-password-key-name>))
  .option("kafka.ssl.truststore.password", dbutils.secrets.get(scope=<certificate-scope-name>,key=<truststore-password-key-name>))
)

Use Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka with IAM​

Preview

This feature is in Public Preview in Databricks Runtime 13.3 LTS and above.

You can use Databricks to connect to Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka (MSK) using IAM. For configuration instructions for MSK, see Amazon MSK configuration.

note

The following configurations are only required if you are using IAM to connect to MSK. You can also configure connections to MSK using options provided by the Apache Spark Kafka connector.

Databricks recommends managing your connection to MSK using an instance profile. See Instance profiles.

You must configure the following options to connect to MSK with an instance profile:

Scala
"kafka.sasl.mechanism" -> "AWS_MSK_IAM",
"kafka.sasl.jaas.config" ->
  "shadedmskiam.software.amazon.msk.auth.iam.IAMLoginModule required;",
"kafka.security.protocol" -> "SASL_SSL",
"kafka.sasl.client.callback.handler.class" ->
  "shadedmskiam.software.amazon.msk.auth.iam.IAMClientCallbackHandler"

You can optionally configure your connection to MSK with an IAM user or IAM role instead of an instance profile. You must provide values for your AWS access key and secret key using the environmental variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. See Use a secret in a Spark configuration property or environment variable.

In addition, if you choose to configure your connection using an IAM role, you must modify the value provided to kafka.sasl.jaas.config to include the role ARN, as in the following example: shadedmskiam.software.amazon.msk.auth.iam.IAMLoginModule required awsRoleArn="arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/msk_client_role".

Service Principal authentication with Microsoft Entra ID and Azure Event Hubs​

Databricks supports the authentication of Spark jobs with Event Hubs services. This authentication is done via OAuth with Microsoft Entra ID.

AAD Authentication diagram

Databricks supports Microsoft Entra ID authentication with a client ID and secret in the following compute environments:

  • Databricks Runtime 12.2 LTS and above on compute configured with dedicated access mode (formerly single user access mode).
  • Databricks Runtime 14.3 LTS and above on compute configured with standard access mode (formerly shared access mode).
  • DLT pipelines configured without Unity Catalog.

Databricks does not support Microsoft Entra ID authentication with a certificate in any compute environment, or in DLT pipelines configured with Unity Catalog.

This authentication does not work on compute with standard access mode or on Unity Catalog DLT.

Unity Catalog service credential support for AWS MSK and Azure Event Hubs​

Since the release of DBR 16.1, Databricks supports Unity Catalog service credentials for authenticating access to AWS Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK) and Azure Event Hubs. Databricks recommends this approach for running Kafka streaming on shared clusters and when using serverless compute.

To use an Unity Catalog service credential for authentication, perform the following steps:

  • Create a new Unity Catalog service credential. If you are not familiar with this process, see Create service credentials for instructions on creating one.
  • Provide the name of your Unity Catalog service credential as a source option in your Kafka configuration. Set the option databricks.serviceCredential to the name of your service credential.

Note: When you provide an Unity Catalog service credential to Kafka, do not specify these options as they are no longer needed:

  • kafka.sasl.mechanism
  • kafka.sasl.jaas.config
  • kafka.security.protocol
  • kafka.sasl.client.callback.handler.class

Configuring the Structured Streaming Kafka Connector​

To perform authentication with Microsoft Entra ID, you must have the following values:

  • A tenant ID. You can find this in the Microsoft Entra ID services tab.

  • A clientID (also known as Application ID).

  • A client secret. Once you have this, you should add it as a secret to your Databricks Workspace. To add this secret, see Secret management.

  • An EventHubs topic. You can find a list of topics in the Event Hubs section under the Entities section on a specific Event Hubs Namespace page. To work with multiple topics, you can set the IAM role at the Event Hubs level.

  • An EventHubs server. You can find this on the overview page of your specific Event Hubs namespace:

    Event Hubs namespace

Additionally, to use Entra ID, we need to tell Kafka to use the OAuth SASL mechanism (SASL is a generic protocol, and OAuth is a type of SASL “mechanism”):

  • kafka.security.protocol should be SASL_SSL
  • kafka.sasl.mechanism should be OAUTHBEARER
  • kafka.sasl.login.callback.handler.class should be a fully qualified name of the Java class with a value of kafkashaded to the login callback handler of our shaded Kafka class. See the following example for the exact class.

Example​

Next, let's look at a running example:

Python
# This is the only section you need to modify for auth purposes!
# ------------------------------
tenant_id = "..."
client_id = "..."
client_secret = dbutils.secrets.get("your-scope", "your-secret-name")

event_hubs_server = "..."
event_hubs_topic = "..."
# -------------------------------

sasl_config = f'kafkashaded.org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.OAuthBearerLoginModule required clientId="{client_id}" clientSecret="{client_secret}" scope="https://{event_hubs_server}/.default" ssl.protocol="SSL";'

kafka_options = {
# Port 9093 is the EventHubs Kafka port
"kafka.bootstrap.servers": f"{event_hubs_server}:9093",
"kafka.sasl.jaas.config": sasl_config,
"kafka.sasl.oauthbearer.token.endpoint.url": f"https://login.microsoft.com/{tenant_id}/oauth2/v2.0/token",
"subscribe": event_hubs_topic,

# You should not need to modify these
"kafka.security.protocol": "SASL_SSL",
"kafka.sasl.mechanism": "OAUTHBEARER",
"kafka.sasl.login.callback.handler.class": "kafkashaded.org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.secured.OAuthBearerLoginCallbackHandler"
}

df = spark.readStream.format("kafka").options(**kafka_options)

display(df)

Handling potential errors​

  • Streaming options are not supported.

    If you try to use this authentication mechanism in a DLT pipeline configured with Unity Catalog you might receive the following error:

    Unsupported streaming error

    To resolve this error, use a supported compute configuration. See Service Principal authentication with Microsoft Entra ID and Azure Event Hubs.

  • Failed to create a new KafkaAdminClient.

    This is an internal error that Kafka throws if any of the following authentication options are incorrect:

    • Client ID (also known as Application ID)
    • Tenant ID
    • EventHubs server

    To resolve the error, verify that the values are correct for these options.

    Additionally, you might see this error if you modify the configuration options provided by default in the example (that you were asked not to modify), such as kafka.security.protocol.

  • There are no records being returned

    If you are trying to display or process your DataFrame but aren't getting results, you will see the following in the UI.

    No results message

    This message means that authentication was successful, but EventHubs didn't return any data. Some possible (though by no means exhaustive) reasons are:

    • You specified the wrong EventHubs topic.
    • The default Kafka configuration option for startingOffsets is latest, and you're not currently receiving any data through the topic yet. You can set startingOffsetstoearliest to start reading data starting from Kafka's earliest offsets.
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