Defining the Apache Kafka Agent

The Apache Kafka Agent establishes the connection between the Automation Engine and the Apache Kafka streaming platform on which your pipeline jobs run. The Agent starts the execution of these jobs and makes both their monitoring and the corresponding reporting possible. Once the Agent is installed, you must define the Agent object in Automic Automation. This topic describes how.

This page includes the following:

Adding the Apache Kafka Agent

You can create Agents manually in Client 0 in the Process Assembly perspective.

  1. You have two options:

    • Right-click anywhere on the list and select Add > Add Object.

    • Click the Add Object button on the toolbar.

  2. On the Add Object dialog you have two options

    • Expand the Agent (AGENT) list to display all Agents and select the relevant Agent

    • Start typing the name of the relevant Agent in the Search field.

  3. Click Add. The Object Name dialog is displayed.

  4. Enter a descriptive Name.

  5. Optionally, enter a short and descriptive Title that helps you recognize the purpose of the object.

  6. Click OK. A new page opens where you can start with the Agent definition.

Defining the Properties on the Apache Kafka Agent Page

On the Agent page, you can specify the following:

  • Authorizations

    Here, you grant the Agent the authorizations that you deem appropriate for the Clients to which it should have access.

  • Attributes Section - Trusted IPs

    If the communication with the Agent runs with encryption, you can specify the IP addresses from which the Agent accepts non-encrypted connections. They must be separated by semicolons.

    Releasing individual IP addresses is only reasonable if login attempts of former Agent versions should be rejected.

  • Service Manager Section

    These properties are necessary for the connection between the Agent and the Service Manager, an external monitoring tool that allows you to start and stop the Automation Engine and its components.

    The Service Manager comes with a proprietary user interface. If you want to use the AWI instead, you can do so provided you enter the necessary information.

For more information, see Agents (HOST).

Defining the Common Properties

Optionally, you can also specify additional parameters on the object definition pages that are common to all Agents, namely:

  • General

    On this page, you can assign the Agent a title, which is an alternative way to name it. You can also apply custom values (archive keys) that you can later use for filtering and you specify certain reporting settings.

  • Documentation

    On this page, you enter the information you consider important to understand the configuration and behavior of the object. By default, this page allows you to enter unstructured documentation. Automic Automation system administrators can configure how many documentation pages will be displayed and whether they can contain unstructured or structured documentation.

For more information, see the Automic Automation documentation at:

Once the Agent definition is done, you must authenticate the Agent, otherwise, you will not be able to start it. For more information, see Agent Authentication in the Automic Automation documentation.

Next Steps

Usually, Automic Automation the communication between the Agent and the target system is established by Connection objects. This is NOT TRUE for the Apache Kafka integration. With the Automic Automation / Apache Kafka Agent Integration, you specify the connection parameters directly in the Producer and Consumer Jobs. For more information, see Defining Apache Kafka Jobs.

See also: