Using Azul JDK with Strimzi Kafka Operator

[JacobAmar]

Using Azul JDK with Strimzi Kafka Operator

Hi everyone,

I'm exploring the possibility of optimizing our Kafka deployment by replacing the default JDK with Azul's JDK in our Strimzi-operated Kafka clusters. According to Azul's benchmarks (https://www.azul.com/technologies/kafka/), their JDK claims to provide up to 45% improved throughput for Kafka workloads.

Current Implementation

I've created a custom Kafka image using the following Dockerfile:

ARG STRIMZI_VERSION=0.45.0
ARG KAFKA_VERSION=3.8.0
FROM ubuntu:22.04 AS build
ARG TARGETARCH
ENV AZUL="zing24.08.201.0-1-jdk17.0.13-linux"

RUN apt update && \
    apt install -y wget && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists 


RUN --mount=type=secret,id=AZUL_FTP_USER,env=FTP_USER \
    --mount=type=secret,id=AZUL_FTP_PASSWORD,env=FTP_PASSWORD\
    if [ "$TARGETARCH" = "arm64" ]; then \
        ARCH="aarch64"; \
    else \
        ARCH="x64"; \
    fi && \
    mkdir /opt/zing && \
    echo "Downloading Azul: ${AZUL}_${ARCH}.tar.gz" && \
    wget --directory-prefix=/tmp --user=$FTP_USER --password=$FTP_PASSWORD ftps://some-ftp-url/${AZUL}_${ARCH}.tar.gz && \
    tar xvfz /tmp/${AZUL}_${ARCH}.tar.gz -C /opt/zing --strip-components=1 && \
    rm /tmp/${AZUL}_${ARCH}.tar.gz

FROM quay.io/strimzi/kafka:$STRIMZI_VERSION-kafka-$KAFKA_VERSION AS final
COPY --from=build /opt/zing /opt/zing
ENV JAVA_HOME=/opt/zing 
ENV PATH=${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${PATH}

Questions

1. Has anyone in the community implemented Azul JDK with Strimzi? Would be great to hear about your experience and any potential gotchas.

2. What's the recommended approach to verify that Kafka is actually using Azul JDK in a Strimzi-managed environment? I'm thinking of checking:

• JVM metrics through JMX
• Process information via the container
• Kafka broker logs

Any insights or experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!