Azure Stream Analytics is a robust real-time analytics service that has been designed for critical business workloads. Users are able to build an end-to-end serverless streaming pipeline in minutes. Utilizing SQL, users are able to go from zero to production with a few clicks, all easily extensible with unique code and automatic machine learning abilities for the most advanced scenarios.
Azure Stream Analytics has the ability to analyze and accurately process exorbitant volumes of high-speed streaming data from numerous sources at the same time. Patterns and scenarios are quickly identified and information is gathered from various input sources, such as social media feeds, applications, clickstreams, sensors, and devices. These patterns can then be implemented to trigger actions and launch workflows, such as feeding data to a reporting tool, storing data for later use, or creating alerts. Azure Stream Analytics is also offered on Azure IoT Edge runtime, so the data can be processed on IoT devices.
Top Benefits
-
User friendly: Azure Stream Analytics is very straightforward and easy to use. Out of the box and with a few clicks, users are able to connect to numerous sources and sinks, and easily develop an end-to-end pipeline. Stream Analytics can easily connect to Azure IoT Hub and Azure Event Hub for streaming ingestion, in addition to connecting with Azure Blob storage for historical data ingestion.
-
Flexible deployment: For low-latency analytics, Azure Stream Analytics can run on Azure Stack or IoT edge. For large-scale analytics, the solution can run in the cloud. Azure Stream Analytics uses the same query language and tools for both the cloud and the edge, facilitating an easier process for developers to design exceptional hybrid architectures for streaming processes.
-
Cost-effective: With Azure Stream Analytics, users only pay for the streaming units they consume; there are no upfront costs. Users can easily scale up or down as needed; there is no commitment or cluster provisioning.
-
Trustworthy: Azure Stream Analytics guarantees event processing to be 99.99% available with a minute level of granularity. Azure Stream Analytics has embedded recovery capabilities and checkpoints to keep things running smoothly at all times. Events are never lost with Azure Stream Analytics at-least once delivery of events and exactly one event processing.
Reviews from Real Users
“Azure Stream Analytics is something that you can use to test out streaming scenarios very quickly in the general sense and it is useful for IoT scenarios. If I was to do a project with IoT and I needed a streaming solution, Azure Stream Analytics would be a top choice. The most valuable features of Azure Stream Analytics are the ease of provisioning and the interface is not terribly complex.” - Olubisi A., Team Lead at a tech services company.
“It's used primarily for data and mining - everything from the telemetry data side of things. It's great for streaming and makes everything easy to handle. The streaming from the IoT hub and the messaging are aspects I like a lot.” - Sudhendra U., Technical Architect at Infosys
Confluent is an enterprise-ready, full-scale streaming platform that enhances Apache Kafka.
Confluent has integrated cutting-edge features that are designed to enhance these tasks:
- Speed up application development and connectivity
- Enable transformations through stream processing
- Streamline business operations at scale
- Adhere to strict architectural standards
Confluent is a more complete distribution of Kafka in that it enhances the integration possibilities of Kafka by introducing tools for managing and optimizing Kafka clusters while providing methods for making sure the streams are secure. Confluent supports publish-and-subscribe as well as the storing and processing of data within the streams. Kafka is easier to operate and build thanks to Confluent.
Confluent's software is available in three different varieties:
- A free, open-source streaming platform that makes it simple to start using real-time data streams
- An enterprise-grade version of the product with more administrative, ops, and monitoring tools
- A premium cloud-based version.
Confluent Advantage Features
Confluent has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
-
Multi-language
- Clients: C++, Python, Go, and .NET
- REST proxy: Can connect to Kafka from any connected network device
- Admin REST APIs: RESTful interface for performing administrator operations
-
Pre-built ecosystem
- Connectors: More than 100 supported connectors, including S3, Elastic, HDFS, JDBC
- MQTT proxy: Gain access to Kafka from MQTT gateways and devices
- Schema registry: Centralized database to guarantee data compatibility
-
Streaming database
- ksqlDB: Materialized views and real-time stream processing
-
GUI management
- Control panel: GUI for scalable Kafka management and monitoring
- Health+: Smart alerts and cloud-based control centers
-
DevOps automation that is flexible
- Confluent for Kubernetes: Complete API to deploy on Kubernetes
- Automated Ansible deployment on non-containerized environments
-
Dynamic performance
- Self-balancing clusters: Automated partition re-balancing across brokers in the cluster
- Tiered storage: Older Kafka data offloading to object storage with transparent access
-
Security that is enterprise-grade
- Role-based access control: Granular user/group access authorization
- Audit logs that are structured: Logs of user actions kept in dedicated Kafka topics
- Secret protection: Sensitive information is encrypted
-
Global resilience
- Linking clusters: A real-time, highly reliable, and consistent bridge across on-premises and cloud environments
- Multiple-region clusters: Single Kafka cluster with automated client failover distributed across multiple data centers
- Replicator: Asynchronous replication that is based on the Kafka Connect framework
-
Support
- Round the clock enterprise support from Kafka experts
Reviews from Real Users
Confluent stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust enterprise support and its open source option. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:
Ravi B., a solutions architect at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “KSQL is a valuable feature, as is the Kafka Connect framework for connecting to the various source systems where you need not write the code. We get great support from Confluent because we're using the enterprise version and whenever there's a problem, they support us with fine-tuning and finding the root cause.”
Amit S., an IT consultant, notes, “The biggest benefit is that it is open source. You have the flexibility of opting or not opting for enterprise support, even though the tool itself is open source.” He adds, “The second benefit is it's very modern and built on Java and Scala. You can extend the features very well, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.”
