4 Steps to Creating Apache Kafka Connectors with the Kafka Connect API

What this post added

This post introduces the Kafka Connect API as a way to build custom connectors for streaming data into and out of Kafka. It outlines the basic architecture of Kafka Connect, including connectors, tasks, and workers, and explains the concepts of standalone and distributed modes. The post then details a four-step process for developing a custom connector: defining configuration properties using AbstractConfig, implementing taskConfigs to distribute configurations to tasks, implementing SourceTask for the core logic, and implementing SourceConnector to define the connector's lifecycle. It also mentions the use of Single Message Transforms (SMTs) and integration with Confluent Schema Registry.