Delivering data from an Apache Kafka® queue to Greenplum®

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Updated at December 3, 2025

Required paid resources
Getting started
Prepare the test data
Set up and activate the transfer
Test the transfer
Delete the resources you created

You can set up data transfer from a Yandex Managed Service for Apache Kafka® topic to Greenplum® in Yandex MPP Analytics for PostgreSQL using Yandex Data Transfer. To do this:

If you no longer need the resources you created, delete them.

Required paid resources

The support cost for this solution includes:

Managed Service for Apache Kafka® cluster fee: Use of computing resources allocated to hosts (including ZooKeeper hosts) and disk storage (see Apache Kafka® pricing).
Greenplum® cluster fee: Using computing resources allocated to hosts and disk space (see Yandex MPP Analytics for PostgreSQL pricing).
Fee for public IP addresses assigned to cluster hosts (see Virtual Private Cloud pricing).
Fee per transfer: Use of computing resources and number of transferred data rows (see Data Transfer pricing).

Getting started

Set up the infrastructure:
Manually

Terraform
1. Create a source Yandex Managed Service for Apache Kafka® cluster in any suitable configuration with publicly available hosts.
2. In the source cluster, create a topic named sensors.
3. In the source cluster, create a user named mkf-user with the ACCESS_ROLE_PRODUCER and ACCESS_ROLE_CONSUMER access permissions for the topic.
4. Create a Greenplum® target cluster in any suitable configuration using the admin username (user) and hosts located in the public domain.
5. Make sure that the cluster security groups are set up correctly and allow connecting to them:
  - Managed Service for Apache Kafka®.
  - Yandex MPP Analytics for PostgreSQL.
1. If you do not have Terraform yet, install it.
2. Get the authentication credentials. You can add them to environment variables or specify them later in the provider configuration file.
3. Configure and initialize a provider. There is no need to create a provider configuration file manually, you can download it.
4. Place the configuration file in a separate working directory and specify the parameter values. If you did not add the authentication credentials to environment variables, specify them in the configuration file.
5. Download the kafka-greenplum.tf configuration file to the same working directory.
  
  This file describes:
  - Networks and subnets where your clusters will be hosted.
  - Security groups for making cluster connections.
  - Managed Service for Apache Kafka® source cluster.
  - Greenplum® target cluster in Yandex MPP Analytics for PostgreSQL.
  - Transfer.
6. In the kafka-greenplum.tf file, specify user passwords and Apache Kafka® and Greenplum® versions.
7. Make sure the Terraform configuration files are correct using this command:
  terraform validate
  Terraform will show any errors found in your configuration files.
8. Create the required infrastructure:
  1. Run this command to view the planned changes:
    
    terraform plan
    
    If you described the configuration correctly, the terminal will display a list of the resources to update and their parameters. This is a verification step that does not apply changes to your resources.
  2. If everything looks correct, apply the changes:
    
    Run this command:
    
    terraform apply
    
    Confirm updating the resources.
    
    Wait for the operation to complete.
  All the required resources will be created in the specified folder. You can check resource availability and their settings in the management console.
Install the following tools:
- kafkacat: For reading from and writing to Apache Kafka® topics.
```
sudo apt update && sudo apt install --yes kafkacat
```
  Make sure you can use it to connect to the Managed Service for Apache Kafka® source cluster over SSL.
- jq: For stream processing of JSON files.
```
sudo apt update && sudo apt-get install --yes jq
```

Prepare the test data

Let's assume the Apache Kafka® sensors topic in the source cluster receives data from car sensors in JSON format.

Create a file named sample.json with test data on your working instance:

sample.json

{
    "device_id": "iv9a94th6rzt********",
    "datetime": "2020-06-05 17:27:00",
    "latitude": 55.70329032,
    "longitude": 37.65472196,
    "altitude": 427.5,
    "speed": 0,
    "battery_voltage": 23.5,
    "cabin_temperature": 17,
    "fuel_level": null
}

Set up and activate the transfer

Create a source endpoint with the Apache Kafka® type and specify the following items for it:

Topic full name: sensors.
json conversion rules. In the Data scheme field, select JSON specification and copy and paste the following field specification into the form that opens:

sensors-specification

[
    {
        "name": "device_id",
        "type": "utf8",
        "key": true
    },
    {
        "name": "datetime",
        "type": "utf8"
    },
    {
        "name": "latitude",
        "type": "double"
    },
    {
        "name": "longitude",
        "type": "double"
    },
    {
        "name": "altitude",
        "type": "double"
    },
    {
        "name": "speed",
        "type": "double"
    },
    {
        "name": "battery_voltage",
        "type": "double"
    },
    {
        "name": "cabin_temperature",
        "type": "uint16"
    },
    {
        "name": "fuel_level",
        "type": "uint16"
    }
]

Create a target endpoint of the Greenplum® type and put user for username.
Create and activate your transfer:
Manually

Terraform
1. Create a Replication-type transfer and configure it to use the previously created endpoints.
2. Activate the transfer and wait for its status to change to Replicating.
1. In the kafka-greenplum.tf file, specify the following variables:
  - kf_source_endpoint_id: Source endpoint ID.
  - gp_target_endpoint_id: ID of the target endpoint.
  - transfer_enabled: Set to 1 to create a transfer.
2. Make sure the Terraform configuration files are correct using this command:
  terraform validate
  Terraform will show any errors found in your configuration files.
3. Create the required infrastructure:
  1. Run this command to view the planned changes:
    
    terraform plan
    
    If you described the configuration correctly, the terminal will display a list of the resources to update and their parameters. This is a verification step that does not apply changes to your resources.
  2. If everything looks correct, apply the changes:
    
    Run this command:
    
    terraform apply
    
    Confirm updating the resources.
    
    Wait for the operation to complete.
4. The transfer will activate automatically upon creation. Wait for its status to change to Replicating.

Test the transfer

Make sure the data from the topic in the source Managed Service for Apache Kafka® cluster is being moved to the Greenplum® database:

Send data from sample.json to the Managed Service for Apache Kafka® sensors topic using jq and kafkacat:

jq -rc . sample.json | kafkacat -P \
    -b <broker_host_FQDN>:9091 \
    -t sensors \
    -k key \
    -X security.protocol=SASL_SSL \
    -X sasl.mechanisms=SCRAM-SHA-512 \
    -X sasl.username="<username_in_source_cluster>" \
    -X sasl.password="<user_password_in_source_cluster>" \
    -X ssl.ca.location=/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/Yandex/YandexInternalRootCA.crt -Z

To learn more about setting up an SSL certificate and using kafkacat, see Connecting to a Apache Kafka® cluster from applications.

Verify that the data has been transferred from the source Managed Service for Apache Kafka® cluster to the Greenplum® database:
1. Connect to the Greenplum® database.
2. Check that the database contains a table named sensors with the test data from the topic:
```
SELECT * FROM public.sensors;
```

Delete the resources you created

Some resources are not free of charge. Delete the resources you no longer need to avoid paying for them:

Make sure the transfer has the Completed status and delete it.
Delete both the source and target endpoints.
Delete the clusters:
Manually

Terraform
- Managed Service for Apache Kafka®.
- Yandex MPP Analytics for PostgreSQL.
1. In the terminal window, go to the directory containing the infrastructure plan.
  
  Warning
  
  Make sure the directory has no Terraform manifests with the resources you want to keep. Terraform deletes all resources that were created using the manifests in the current directory.
2. Delete resources:
  1. Run this command:
    
    terraform destroy
  2. Confirm deleting the resources and wait for the operation to complete.
  All the resources described in the Terraform manifests will be deleted.

Delivering data from an Apache Kafka® queue to Greenplum®

Required paid resourcesRequired paid resources

Getting startedGetting started

Prepare the test dataPrepare the test data

Set up and activate the transferSet up and activate the transfer

Test the transferTest the transfer

Delete the resources you createdDelete the resources you created