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Confluent Enterprise Kafka

KubeDB can run Confluent Server (Confluent’s Enterprise Kafka distribution) instead of KubeDB’s own Apache Kafka based image. This tutorial will show you how to deploy a Kafka cluster on the Confluent distribution and provide it with an enterprise license.

Before You Begin

At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.

Now, install the KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.

To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

$ kubectl create namespace demo
namespace/demo created

$ kubectl get namespace
NAME                 STATUS   AGE
demo                 Active   9s

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in examples/kafka/confluent/ folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Confluent distribution KafkaVersion

Running Confluent Server requires a KafkaVersion catalog object whose spec.distribution is set to Confluent, pointing spec.db.image at Confluent’s own image directly (KubeDB doesn’t rehost Confluent Server, since its license is commercial and doesn’t permit redistribution). KubeDB ships a confluent-8.3.2 KafkaVersion by default:

$ kubectl get kafkaversion confluent-8.3.2 -o yaml

apiVersion: catalog.kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: KafkaVersion
metadata:
  name: confluent-8.3.2
spec:
  distribution: Confluent
  db:
    image: docker.io/confluentinc/cp-server:8.3.2
  version: 8.3.2
  ...

See the KafkaVersion concept page for details.

Create License Secret

Confluent Server runs on a 30-day trial without a license, then stops working. Create a Secret containing your enterprise license key:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: kafka-confluent-license
  namespace: demo
stringData:
  license: <your-confluent-enterprise-license-key>

Apply the secret:

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.7.10/docs/examples/kafka/confluent/kafka-confluent-license.yaml
secret/kafka-confluent-license created

Create a Confluent Enterprise Kafka

Here is an example Kafka CR that uses the confluent-8.3.2 KafkaVersion and the license Secret created above:

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1
kind: Kafka
metadata:
  name: kafka-confluent
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: confluent-8.3.2
  license:
    secretName: kafka-confluent-license
  replicas: 3
  storageType: Durable
  storage:
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
    storageClassName: standard
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

Here,

• spec.version is set to confluent-8.3.2, the Confluent distribution KafkaVersion.
• spec.license.secretName points at the Secret holding the enterprise license key. See the Kafka concept page for details.

Apply the yaml:

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.7.10/docs/examples/kafka/confluent/kafka-confluent.yaml
kafka.kubedb.com/kafka-confluent created

KubeDB operator watches for Kafka objects using Kubernetes API. When a Kafka object is created, KubeDB operator will create a new PetSet running Confluent Server, along with the other Kubernetes resources like Service, Secret etc. required to run the Kafka cluster.

$ kubectl get kafka -n demo -w
NAME               TYPE            VERSION           STATUS         AGE
kafka-confluent    kubedb.com/v1   confluent-8.3.2   Provisioning   2s
kafka-confluent    kubedb.com/v1   confluent-8.3.2   Provisioning   4s
.
.
kafka-confluent    kubedb.com/v1   confluent-8.3.2   Ready          112s

Cleanup

To clean up the resources created by this tutorial, run the following commands:

$ kubectl delete -n demo kafka kafka-confluent
$ kubectl delete -n demo secret kafka-confluent-license
$ kubectl delete ns demo

Next Steps

• Detail concepts of Kafka object.
• Detail concepts of KafkaVersion object.
• Deploy your first Kafka database with KubeDB by following the guide here.
• Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.