Bruce

Bruce is a producer daemon for Apache Kafka. Bruce simplifies clients that send messages to Kafka, freeing them from the complexity of direct interaction with the Kafka cluster. Specifically, it handles the details of:

• Routing messages to the proper brokers, and spreading the load evenly across multiple partitions for a given topic. Clients may optionally exercise control over partition assignment, such as ensuring that a group of related messages are all routed to the same partition, or even directly choosing a partition if the client knows the cluster topology.
• Waiting for acknowledgements, and resending messages as necessary due to communication failures or Kafka-reported errors
• Buffering messages to handle transient load spikes and Kafka-related problems
• Tracking message discards when serious problems occur; Providing web-based discard reporting and status monitoring interfaces
• Batching and compressing messages in a configurable manner for improved performance
• Optional rate limiting of messages on a per-topic basis. This guards against buggy client code overwhelming the Kafka cluster with too many messages.

Bruce runs on each individual host that communicates with Kafka, receiving messages from local clients over a UNIX domain datagram socket. Clients write messages to Bruce's socket in a simple binary format. Once a client has written a message, no further interaction with Bruce is required. From that point onward, Bruce takes full responsibility for reliable message delivery. Bruce serves as a single intake point for a Kafka cluster, receiving messages from diverse clients regardless of what programming language a client is written in. The following client support for sending messages to Bruce is currently available:

• C and C++
• Java
• Other JVM-based languages (Scala, Clojure, Groovy, etc.) via Bruce's Java support
• Python
• Ruby
• PHP
• Node.js
• Perl
• Shell scripting

Code contributions for clients in other programming languages are much appreciated. Technical details on how to send messages to Bruce are provided here. Support for running Bruce inside a Docker container is also available. Bruce runs on Linux, and has been tested on CentOS versions 7 and 6.5, and Ubuntu versions 15.04 LTS, 14.04.1 LTS, and 13.10. Bruce requires at least version 0.8 of Kafka.

Setting Up a Build Environment

To get Bruce working, you need to set up a build environment. Currently, instructions are available for CentOS 7, CentOS 6.5, and Ubuntu (15.04 LTS, 14.04.1 LTS, and 13.10).

Building and Installing Bruce

Once your build environment is set up, the next step is to build and install Bruce.

Running Bruce with Basic Configuration

Simple instructions for running Bruce with a basic configuration can be found here.

Sending Messages

Information on how to send messages to Bruce can be found here.

Status Monitoring

Information on status monitoring can be found here.

Design Overview

Before going into more details on Bruce's configuration options, it is helpful to have an understanding of Bruce's design, which is described here.

Detailed Configuration

Full details of Bruce's configuration options are provided here.

Troubleshooting

Information that may help with troubleshooting is provided here.

Modifying Bruce's Implementation

Information for developers interested in making custom modifications or contributing code to Bruce is provided here.

Getting Help

If you have questions about Bruce, contact Dave Peterson (dave@dspeterson.com).

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README.md: Copyright 2014 if(we), Inc.

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