Recently, DataStax revealed that Astra Streaming, a new product of the company’s Astra cloud that will run and integrate independently with Astra DB, is now available in beta.
The service is developed based on the gained technology from the acquisition of Kesque early this year. It is the replacement of the Luna streaming service.
Astra Streaming, which will be included in the Astra portfolio, will support multiple clouds. The service will be available for free with certain restrictions while in beta. However, it will later be charged on a pay-per-use basis when the service is released to the general market.
Apache Pulsar is the basis of the technology associated with the service. It is a publish/subscribe messaging system that is usually put in comparison with Apache Kafka.
DataStax claims that the service will work with Kafka through an already existent wrapper. While this functionality will not be enabled during the beta, it is expected to be available with the final version.
Pulsar and Kafka are part of the series of messaging systems that stretch back to IBM and Tibco's mainframe period, as well as RabbitMQ and JMS's Internet period.
Kafka is the more well-known of the present generation, having been created at LinkedIn. On the other hand, Pulstar is developed at Yahoo. Both are included in the best Apache works.
Both Pulsar and Kafka were intended for scale-out, offer extended durability assurances, provide a wide variety of operational tools, enable replication throughout various locations, and mutual reliance on Apache Zookeeper for metadata storage.
However, there are significant distinctions in the architecture of Pulsar and Kafka. Pulsar delivers messages to users, whereas Kafka needs users to bring them down. This is one of the most basic features.
Moreover, Kafka is easier to use since it integrates the broker and persistence of messages in the same layer, whereas Pulsar separates them.
Aside from a rebranding, Astra Streaming distinguishes itself from Luna. Astra Streaming will be entirely handled by DataStax, unlike in Luna where consumers manage it.
Additionally, Astra Streaming is different from the Android mobile app called Astra Streaming Studio, which is downloadable from the Google Play store.
The announcement of Astra Streaming by DataStax comes as no surprise. When DataStax obtained Kesque in January, which has its own Luna Pulsar product, the news is expected.
DataStax is a California-based data management firm that offers software, support, and cloud database-as-a-service for business.