Kafka Consumer

The Kafka Consumer utility is a tool that allows you to subscribe to a Kafka topic and receive messages as they are posted to that topic. It runs as a non-modal dialog, so you can start it and then continue to use other LaunchPad functionality. Picking the menu item when the utility is already running will simply switch to the existing running instance of the form.

The Profile picker defaults to the profile that you have selected in the main LaunchPad window, but you can select an alternative profile if desired. Selecting a profile defines which Kafka server you will connect to.

The Topic name picker is populated with the three topics defined in the currently selected profile (CDC, snapshot request and snapshot response), allowing you to select the topic that you wish to receive messages from.

Having selected a topic, click the Subscribe button to subscribe to the topic.

Once subscribed you will see any messages that are sent to the topic displayed in the body of the application. You can use the Pause button to temporarily pause the receipt of new messages, and the Unsubscribe button can be used to end your current subscription to the topic.

A common use case for this utility is to monitor the CDC topic to view replication activity in the environment.