Aiven services are managed in the Aiven web console. When you first log in to the console with your email address and password, you will see the Services view, which shows you all the services in the currently selected project.
Projects allow you to organize groups of services under different topics. For example, you can apply different billing settings to each project. An empty project is created for you automatically when you sign up and the free credits are attached to this project. Use the Project menu on the left of the console to switch between projects and create new ones.
To get started with Aiven for Apache Kafka:
Click Create a new service.
This opens a new page with the available service options.Select the main properties for your service:
Select Kafka as the service type as well as the version that you want to use.
Select the cloud provider and region that you want to run your service on.
Note: The pricing for the same service may vary between different providers and regions. The service summary on the right side of the console shows you the pricing for your selected options.Select a service plan.
This defines how many servers and what kind of memory, CPU, and disk resources are allocated to your service.Enter a name for your service.
A random name is provided by default, but you can enter a more recognizable name to distinguish it from other services.
Click Create Service under the summary on the right side of the console.
This brings you back to the Services view. Your new service is listed with a status indicator to show that it is being created.Click the service name.
The Overview page for the service opens. This view shows you the connection parameters for your service, its current status, and the configuration options.
The status is REBUILDING while the service is being created for you. Once the service is ready, the status changes to RUNNING. While services typically start up in a couple of minutes, the performance varies between cloud providers and regions, and it may take longer in some circumstances.If you want to use SASL authentication to connect to your service, turn on kafka_authentication_methods.sasl under Advanced configuration.
This shows you new connection options on the overview tab. SASL connections are served on a different port but the host, CA, and user credentials stay the same.
For more information on the supported methods, see our article on Kafka authentication types.
Try connecting to your service.
See our examples repository for executable examples in a number of programming languages
Got here by accident? Learn how Aiven simplifies working with Apache Kafka: