Analyze Kafka Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData Connect Server and Kafka Connector to build dynamic dashboards from live Kafka data. The CData Connect Server creates a virtual database for Kafka and can be used to generate an OData API (natively consumable in Reveal) for Kafka. In this article, we walk through connecting to Kafka in Connect Server and connecting to Connect Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to Kafka from Reveal through Connect Server.

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to Kafka from Connect Server

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open Connect Server and click Connections
2. Select "Kafka" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Kafka.

   Set BootstrapServers and the Topic properties to specify the address of your Apache Kafka server, as well as the topic you would like to interact with.

   Authorization Mechanisms

   • SASL Plain: The User and Password properties should be specified. AuthScheme should be set to 'Plain'.
   • SASL SSL: The User and Password properties should be specified. AuthScheme should be set to 'Scram'. UseSSL should be set to true.
   • SSL: The SSLCert and SSLCertPassword properties should be specified. UseSSL should be set to true.
   • Kerberos: The User and Password properties should be specified. AuthScheme should be set to 'Kerberos'.

   You may be required to trust the server certificate. In such cases, specify the TrustStorePath and the TrustStorePassword if necessary.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal).

Add Kafka OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to Kafka, create OData Endpoint for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Kafka database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in OData -> Settings.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With Connect Server configured, we can visualize Kafka data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the Connect Server API endpoint URL (found in API -> Discovery -> Base URL), for example: CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the Connect Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Kafka data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Kafka (and more than 150 other sources), visit the Connect Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Kafka data in tools that consume OData APIs.