Runtime Components

This reference lists the runtime components Axual builds and supports, and the third-party components that can run alongside them. For how these components interact with the rest of the platform, see Axual Architecture & Components.

Type

Reference

Goal

Find the runtime component you need and the page that documents it.

Audience

Platform Operators and architects deciding which runtime components to add to an installation.

When to use

Use this guide as the entry point to the runtime component documentation.

Runtime components are not part of a regular installation of the Axual Platform, but can be added if required. These components are not part of the platform Helm charts (Streaming & Governance charts), but are deployed separately.

Contents

The sections below cover each area in this reference:

Axual-developed runtime components

Axual builds and supports the components below.

Kafka Connect

Gives every tenant its own Strimzi-managed Connect cluster.

Axual Connect

One Connect cluster shared by all tenants on an instance. Deprecated, superseded by the Kafka Connect component above; see Why Kafka Connect replaces Axual Connect for the timeline.

Axual Distributor

Geo Replication of Kafka clusters.

Runtime Provisioner

Deploys KSML applications and reads Kafka Connect worker logs.

KSML

Kafka Streams applications defined in YAML, deployed by the Runtime Provisioner. See also ksml.io.

Terraform Provider

Create Axual topics and apps via CI/CD.

Runtime components not maintained by Axual

The components below are built by third parties and are not supported by Axual.

Cruise Control

Cruise Control is a LinkedIn-developed product that helps run Apache Kafka clusters at large scale. Read the blog post or this blog for an overview and Cruise Control github for details.

Cruise Control can be enabled as part of the Kafka deployment.

Lag Exporter

Kafka Lag Exporter shows the latency (residence time) of your Apache Kafka consumer groups. It can run anywhere, but it provides features to run easily on Kubernetes clusters against Strimzi Kafka clusters using the Prometheus and Grafana monitoring stack.

For more information about Kafka Lag Exporter’s features, see Lightbend’s blog post.

RedPanda

RedPanda UI can be installed alongside Axual Self-Service. It modifies Access Control Lists (ACLs), topics and other Kafka objects, so you do not have to run Kafka scripts on the brokers.

phpMyAdmin

Sometimes during debugging, it is necessary to view or modify the Axual Self-Service database. For that, a phpMyAdmin Pod can be installed via Helm.

Ververica Platform

Ververica Platform is a management layer for Apache Flink. An operator deploys and operates it separately from the Axual Platform; Axual integrates with an existing deployment to run Managed Flink SQL applications. See Flink and Enabling Flink for an Instance.