[KAFKA-865] Mavenize and separate the client.

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Duplicate
• Affects Version/s: 0.8.0
• Component/s: clients
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Ashwanth Fernando
• Created: 17/Apr/13 21:38
• Updated: 07/Feb/15 23:20
• Resolved: 07/Feb/15 23:20

Description

It seems that the java client for Kafka is also bundled with the server JAR file and this is generated using sbt package. This is difficult for java folks to work with because:

1) Many java shops use maven and they want to specify the GAV of kafka in their pom and bang, the client jar and all its dependencies should be added to the application's classpath. I can't do that right now, because I need to run ./sbt eclipse, get the .JAR, add that to my classpath, add a whole lot of dependencies (log4j, slf4j, zkClient and so on) manually, which is a pain.

There are 90 million maven central uploads/downloads in 2012 alone. Almost all the java shops out there have maven (either central or in house sonatype).

2) Separation of concerns - keeping the server (core) and the client's classes together in same jar file, increases the size of the bundle for a client and also everytime the server's code changes and a release is performed, the client also needs to update their .JAR file. which is not very great. We don't want a ton of clients to update their .JAR file, just because a faster replication strategy for the kafka server cluster changed in a new release.

Action items are to separate the client and server portions of Kafka, add it in a pom along with the compile time dependencies and upload it to Maven Central or if you have a LinkedIn externally exposed Nexus, over there.

This will increase adoption of the Kafka framework.