Hi Divij, Thank you for your response! Although compression is not a new problem, it has continued to be an important research topic. The integration and testing of new compression algorithms into Kafka currently requires significant code changes and rebuilding of the distribution package for Kafka. This KIP will allow for any compression algorithm to be seamlessly integrated into Kafka by writing a plugin that would bind into the wrapForInput and wrapForOutput methods in Kafka.
As you mentioned, Kafka currently supports zstd, snappy, gzip and lz4. However, other opensource compression projects like the Brotli algorithm are also gaining traction. For example the HTTP servers Apache and nginx offer Brotli compression as an option. With a pluggable interface, any Kafka developer could integrate and test Brotli with Kafka simply by writing a plugin. This same motivation can be applied to any other compression algorithm including hardware accelerated compression. There are hardware companies including intel and AMD that are working on accelerating compression. This KIP would certainly complement the current https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-7632 by adding even more flexibility for the users. A plugin could be tailored to arbitrary datasets in response to a user's specific resource requirements. For reference, other opensource projects have already started or implemented this type of plugin technology such as: 1. Cassandra, which has implemented the same concept of pluggable interface. 2. OpenSearch is also working on enabling the same type of plugin framework. With respect to message recompression, the plugin interface would handle this use case on the broker side similar to the current recompression process. Assane -----Original Message----- From: Divij Vaidya <divijvaidy...@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, December 22, 2023 2:27 AM To: dev@kafka.apache.org Subject: Re: DISCUSS KIP-984 Add pluggable compression interface to Kafka Thank you for writing the KIP Assane. In general, exposing a "pluggable" interface is not a decision made lightly because it limits our ability to remove / change that interface in future. Any future changes to the interface will have to remain compatible with existing plugins which limits the flexibility of changes we can make inside Kafka. Hence, we need a strong motivation for adding a pluggable interface. 1\ May I ask the motivation for this KIP? Are the current compression codecs (zstd, gzip, lz4, snappy) not sufficient for your use case? Would proving fine grained compression options as proposed in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-7632 and https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-390%3A+Support+Compression+Level address your use case? 2\ "This option impacts the following processes" -> This should also include the decompression and compression that occurs during message version transformation, i.e. when client send message with V1 and broker expects in V2, we convert the message and recompress it. -- Divij Vaidya On Mon, Dec 18, 2023 at 7:22 PM Diop, Assane <assane.d...@intel.com> wrote: > I would like to bring some attention to this KIP. We have added an > interface to the compression code that allow anyone to build their own > compression plugin and integrate easily back to kafka. > > Assane > > -----Original Message----- > From: Diop, Assane <assane.d...@intel.com> > Sent: Monday, October 2, 2023 9:27 AM > To: dev@kafka.apache.org > Subject: DISCUSS KIP-984 Add pluggable compression interface to Kafka > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-984%3A+Add+plugg > able+compression+interface+to+Kafka >
