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Redpanda

What is Redpanda?​

Redpanda offers a simple, powerful, and Kafka®-compatible streaming data platform. Kpow provides a rich, developer-focused UI to manage and monitor it. Together, they form a robust stack for building and operating real-time data pipelines.

Quickstart​

Let's begin by creating a dedicated Docker network named factorhouse, which establishes a private communication channel for the Redpanda and Kpow containers. Then launch a single Redpanda broker and Kpow instance in dedicated containers.

Here's an overview of the containers:

  • Redpanda (redpanda)
    • Image: redpandadata/redpanda:latest
    • Host Ports:
      • 19092: Exposes the Kafka API to the host machine.
      • 18081: Exposes the Schema Registry API to the host machine.
    • Configuration:
      • Mode: Runs in dev-container mode, optimized for a single-node development environment.
      • Kafka API: Listens for connections internally on port 9092 and externally on 19092. It advertises itself as redpanda:9092 within the Docker network and localhost:19092 to the host.
      • Schema Registry: The built-in schema registry is enabled, listening internally on 8081 and externally on 18081.
    • Network: Attached to the factorhouse network, making it reachable by other containers at the hostname redpanda.
  • Kpow (kpow)
    • Image: factorhouse/kpow-ce:latest (Use factorhouse/kpow:latest for the enterprise edition)
    • Host Port: 3000 (for accessing the Kpow web UI from a browser at http://localhost:3000).
    • Configuration:
      • BOOTSTRAP: Configured to connect to the Redpanda cluster at redpanda:9092, using the internal Docker network for communication.
      • SCHEMA_REGISTRY_URL: Configured to connect to Redpanda's integrated schema registry at http://redpanda:8081.
      • ENVIRONMENT_NAME: Sets a descriptive name for the cluster that appears in the Kpow UI.
      • Licensing: The configuration is loaded from an environment file specified by the $KPOW_LICENSE_FILE shell variable, which is required to run the container.
    • Network: Attached to the factorhouse network, allowing it to resolve and connect to the redpanda container.
## Create a docker network to be shared
docker network create factorhouse

## Start a Redpanda cluster and schema registry
docker run -d -p 19092:19092 -p 18081:18081 --name redpanda --hostname redpanda --network factorhouse \
  redpandadata/redpanda:latest redpanda start \
    --kafka-addr internal://0.0.0.0:9092,external://0.0.0.0:19092 \
    --advertise-kafka-addr internal://redpanda:9092,external://localhost:19092 \
    --schema-registry-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8081,external://0.0.0.0:18081 \
    --rpc-addr redpanda:33145 \
    --advertise-rpc-addr redpanda:33145 \
    --mode dev-container

## Start a Kpow instance
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name kpow --network factorhouse \
  -e ENVIRONMENT_NAME="Local Redpanda Cluster" \
  -e BOOTSTRAP="redpanda:9092" \
  -e SCHEMA_REGISTRY_NAME="Local Repanda Registry" \
  -e SCHEMA_REGISTRY_URL="http://redpanda:8081" \
  --env-file=$KPOW_LICENSE_FILE \
  factorhouse/kpow-ce:latest

Once the containers are running, navigate to http://localhost:3000 to access the Kpow UI. We can see that Kpow has automatically discovered and connected to the single Redpanda broker and its schema registry.

Kpow Overview