Chapter 13. Using Cruise Control for cluster rebalancing Cruise Control is an open source system for automating Kafka operations, such as monitoring cluster workload, rebalancing a cluster based on predefined constraints, and detecting and fixing anomalies. It consists of four main components- the Load Monitor, the Analyzer, the Anomaly Detector, and the Executor- and a REST API for client interactions. You can use Cruise Control to rebalance a Kafka cluster. Cruise Control for Streams for Apache Kafka on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is provided as a separate zipped distribution. Streams for Apache Kafka utilizes the REST API to support the following Cruise Control features: Generating optimization proposals from optimization goals. Rebalancing a Kafka cluster based on an optimization proposal. Optimization goals An optimization goal describes a specific objective to achieve from a rebalance. For example, a goal might be to distribute topic replicas across brokers more evenly. You can change what goals to include through configuration. A goal is defined as a hard goal or soft goal. You can add hard goals through Cruise Control deployment configuration. You also have main, default, and user-provided goals that fit into each of these categories. Hard goals are preset and must be satisfied for an optimization proposal to be successful. Soft goals do not need to be satisfied for an optimization proposal to be successful. They can be set aside if it means that all hard goals are met. Main goals are inherited from Cruise Control. Some are preset as hard goals. Main goals are used in optimization proposals by default. Default goals are the same as the main goals by default. You can specify your own set of default goals. User-provided goals are a subset of default goals that are configured for generating a specific optimization proposal. Optimization proposals Optimization proposals comprise the goals you want to achieve from a rebalance. You generate an optimization proposal to create a summary of proposed changes and the results that are possible with the rebalance. The goals are assessed in a specific order of priority. You can then choose to approve or reject the proposal. You can reject the proposal to run it again with an adjusted set of goals. You can generate and approve an optimization proposal by making a request to one of the following API endpoints. /rebalance endpoint to run a full rebalance. /add_broker endpoint to rebalance after adding brokers when scaling up a Kafka cluster. /remove_broker endpoint to rebalance before removing brokers when scaling down a Kafka cluster. You configure optimization goals through a configuration properties file. Streams for Apache Kafka provides example properties files for Cruise Control. 13.1. Cruise Control components and features Cruise Control consists of four main components- the Load Monitor, the Analyzer, the Anomaly Detector, and the Executor- and a REST API for client interactions. Streams for Apache Kafka utilizes the REST API to support the following Cruise Control features: Generating optimization proposals from optimization goals. Rebalancing a Kafka cluster based on an optimization proposal. Optimization goals An optimization goal describes a specific objective to achieve from a rebalance. For example, a goal might be to distribute topic replicas across brokers more evenly. You can change what goals to include through configuration. A goal is defined as a hard goal or soft goal. You can add hard goals through Cruise Control deployment configuration. You also have main, default, and user-provided goals that fit into each of these categories. Hard goals are preset and must be satisfied for an optimization proposal to be successful. Soft goals do not need to be satisfied for an optimization proposal to be successful. They can be set aside if it means that all hard goals are met. Main goals are inherited from Cruise Control. Some are preset as hard goals. Main goals are used in optimization proposals by default. Default goals are the same as the main goals by default. You can specify your own set of default goals. User-provided goals are a subset of default goals that are configured for generating a specific optimization proposal. Optimization proposals Optimization proposals comprise the goals you want to achieve from a rebalance. You generate an optimization proposal to create a summary of proposed changes and the results that are possible with the rebalance. The goals are assessed in a specific order of priority. You can then choose to approve or reject the proposal. You can reject the proposal to run it again with an adjusted set of goals. You can generate an optimization proposal in one of three modes. full is the default mode and runs a full rebalance. add-brokers is the mode you use after adding brokers when scaling up a Kafka cluster. remove-brokers is the mode you use before removing brokers when scaling down a Kafka cluster. Other Cruise Control features are not currently supported, including self healing, notifications, write-your-own goals, and changing the topic replication factor. Additional resources Cruise Control documentation 13.2. Downloading Cruise Control A ZIP file distribution of Cruise Control is available for download from the Red Hat website. You can download the latest version of Red Hat Streams for Apache Kafka from the Streams for Apache Kafka software downloads page . Procedure Download the latest version of the Red Hat Streams for Apache Kafka Cruise Control archive from the Red Hat Customer Portal . Create the /opt/cruise-control directory: sudo mkdir /opt/cruise-control Extract the contents of the Cruise Control ZIP file to the new directory: unzip amq-streams-<version>-cruise-control-bin.zip -d /opt/cruise-control Change the ownership of the /opt/cruise-control directory to the kafka user: sudo chown -R kafka:kafka /opt/cruise-control 13.3. Deploying the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter Before starting Cruise Control, you must configure the Kafka brokers to use the provided Cruise Control Metrics Reporter. The file for the Metrics Reporter is supplied with the Streams for Apache Kafka installation artifacts. When loaded at runtime, the Metrics Reporter sends metrics to the __CruiseControlMetrics topic, one of three auto-created topics . Cruise Control uses these metrics to create and update the workload model and to calculate optimization proposals. Prerequisites Streams for Apache Kafka is installed on each host , and the configuration files are available. You are logged in to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the kafka user. Procedure For each broker in the Kafka cluster and one at a time: Stop the Kafka broker: /opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-stop.sh Edit the Kafka configuration properties file to configure the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter. Add the CruiseControlMetricsReporter class to the metric.reporters configuration option. Do not remove any existing Metrics Reporters. Add the following configuration options and values: These options enable the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter to create the __CruiseControlMetrics topic with a log cleanup policy of DELETE . For more information, see Auto-created topics and Log cleanup policy for Cruise Control Metrics topic . Configure SSL, if required. In the Kafka configuration properties file, configure SSL between the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter and the Kafka broker by setting the relevant client configuration properties. The Metrics Reporter accepts all standard producer-specific configuration properties with the cruise.control.metrics.reporter prefix. For example: cruise.control.metrics.reporter.ssl.truststore.password . In the Cruise Control properties file ( /opt/cruise-control/config/cruisecontrol.properties ) configure SSL between the Kafka broker and the Cruise Control server by setting the relevant client configuration properties. Cruise Control inherits SSL client property options from Kafka and uses those properties for all Cruise Control server clients. Restart the Kafka broker: /opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-start.sh -daemon /opt/kafka/config/kraft/server.properties For information on restarting brokers in a multi-node cluster, see Section 3.6, "Performing a graceful rolling restart of Kafka brokers" . Repeat steps 1-5 for the remaining brokers. 13.4. Configuring and starting Cruise Control Configure the properties used by Cruise Control and then start the Cruise Control server using the kafka-cruise-control-start.sh script. The server is hosted on a single machine for the whole Kafka cluster. Three topics are auto-created when Cruise Control starts. For more information, see Auto-created topics . Prerequisites You are logged in to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the kafka user. You have downloaded Cruise Control . You have deployed the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter . Procedure Edit the Cruise Control properties file ( /opt/cruise-control/config/cruisecontrol.properties ). Configure the properties shown in the following example configuration: # The Kafka cluster to control. bootstrap.servers=localhost:9092 1 # The replication factor of Kafka metric sample store topic sample.store.topic.replication.factor=2 2 # The configuration for the BrokerCapacityConfigFileResolver (supports JBOD, non-JBOD, and heterogeneous CPU core capacities) #capacity.config.file=config/capacity.json #capacity.config.file=config/capacityCores.json capacity.config.file=config/capacityJBOD.json 3 # The list of goals to optimize the Kafka cluster for with pre-computed proposals default.goals={List of default optimization goals} 4 # The list of supported goals goals={list of main optimization goals} 5 # The list of supported hard goals hard.goals={List of hard goals} 6 # How often should the cached proposal be expired and recalculated if necessary proposal.expiration.ms=60000 7 #Set failure detection to true kafka.broker.failure.detection.enable=true 8 1 Host and port numbers of the Kafka broker (always port 9092). 2 Replication factor of the Kafka metric sample store topic. If you are evaluating Cruise Control in a single-node Kafka cluster, set this property to 1. For production use, set this property to 2 or more. 3 The configuration file that sets the maximum capacity limits for broker resources. Use the file that applies to your Kafka deployment configuration. For more information, see Capacity configuration . 4 Comma-separated list of default optimization goals, using fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs). A number of main optimization goals (see 5) are already set as default optimization goals; you can add or remove goals if desired. For more information, see Section 13.5, "Optimization goals overview" . 5 Comma-separated list of main optimization goals, using FQDNs. To completely exclude goals from being used to generate optimization proposals, remove them from the list. For more information, see Section 13.5, "Optimization goals overview" . 6 Comma-separated list of hard goals, using FQDNs. Seven of the main optimization goals are already set as hard goals; you can add or remove goals if desired. For more information, see Section 13.5, "Optimization goals overview" . 7 The interval, in milliseconds, for refreshing the cached optimization proposal that is generated from the default optimization goals. For more information, see Section 13.6, "Optimization proposals overview" . 8 Enables Cruise Control to use the Kafka API to detect broker failures. Start the Cruise Control server. The server starts on port 9092 by default; optionally, specify a different port. cd /opt/cruise-control/ ./kafka-cruise-control-start.sh config/cruisecontrol.properties <port_number> To verify that Cruise Control is running, send a GET request to the /state endpoint of the Cruise Control server: curl -X GET 'http://<cc_host>:<cc_port>/kafkacruisecontrol/state' Auto-created topics The following table shows the three topics that are automatically created when Cruise Control starts. These topics are required for Cruise Control to work properly and must not be deleted or changed. Table 13.1. Auto-created topics Auto-created topic Created by Function __CruiseControlMetrics Cruise Control Metrics Reporter Stores the raw metrics from the Metrics Reporter in each Kafka broker. __KafkaCruiseControlPartitionMetricSamples Cruise Control Stores the derived metrics for each partition. These are created by the Metric Sample Aggregator . __KafkaCruiseControlModelTrainingSamples Cruise Control Stores the metrics samples used to create the Cluster Workload Model . To ensure that log compaction is disabled in the auto-created topics, make sure that you configure the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter as described in Section 13.3, "Deploying the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter" . Log compaction can remove records that are needed by Cruise Control and prevent it from working properly. Additional resources Log cleanup policy for Cruise Control Metrics topic 13.5. Optimization goals overview Optimization goals are constraints on workload redistribution and resource utilization across a Kafka cluster. To rebalance a Kafka cluster, Cruise Control uses optimization goals to generate optimization proposals . 13.5.1. Goals order of priority Streams for Apache Kafka on Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports all the optimization goals developed in the Cruise Control project. The supported goals, in the default descending order of priority, are as follows: Rack-awareness Minimum number of leader replicas per broker for a set of topics Replica capacity Capacity: Disk capacity, Network inbound capacity, Network outbound capacity CPU capacity Replica distribution Potential network output Resource distribution: Disk utilization distribution, Network inbound utilization distribution, Network outbound utilization distribution Leader bytes-in rate distribution Topic replica distribution CPU usage distribution Leader replica distribution Preferred leader election Kafka Assigner disk usage distribution Intra-broker disk capacity Intra-broker disk usage For more information on each optimization goal, see Goals in the Cruise Control Wiki . 13.5.2. Goals configuration in the Cruise Control properties file You configure optimization goals in the cruisecontrol.properties file in the cruise-control/config/ directory. Cruise Control has configurations for hard optimization goals that must be satisfied, as well as main, default, and user-provided optimization goals. You can specify the following types of optimization goal in the following configuration: Main goals - cruisecontrol.properties file Hard goals - cruisecontrol.properties file Default goals - cruisecontrol.properties file User-provided goals - runtime parameters Optionally, user-provided optimization goals are set at runtime as parameters in requests to the /rebalance endpoint. Optimization goals are subject to any capacity limits on broker resources. 13.5.3. Hard and soft optimization goals Hard goals are goals that must be satisfied in optimization proposals. Goals that are not configured as hard goals are known as soft goals . You can think of soft goals as best effort goals: they do not need to be satisfied in optimization proposals, but are included in optimization calculations. Cruise Control will calculate optimization proposals that satisfy all the hard goals and as many soft goals as possible (in their priority order). An optimization proposal that does not satisfy all the hard goals is rejected by the Analyzer and is not sent to the user. Note For example, you might have a soft goal to distribute a topic's replicas evenly across the cluster (the topic replica distribution goal). Cruise Control will ignore this goal if doing so enables all the configured hard goals to be met. In Cruise Control, the following main optimization goals are preset as hard goals: To change the hard goals, edit the hard.goals property of the cruisecontrol.properties file and specify the goals using their fully-qualified domain names. Increasing the number of hard goals reduces the likelihood that Cruise Control will calculate and generate valid optimization proposals. 13.5.4. Main optimization goals The main optimization goals are available to all users. Goals that are not listed in the main optimization goals are not available for use in Cruise Control operations. The following main optimization goals are preset in the goals property of the cruisecontrol.properties file in descending priority order: To reduce complexity, we recommend that you do not change the preset main optimization goals, unless you need to completely exclude one or more goals from being used to generate optimization proposals. The priority order of the main optimization goals can be modified, if desired, in the configuration for default optimization goals. To modify the preset main optimization goals, specify a list of goals in the goals property in descending priority order. Use fully-qualified domain names as shown in the cruisecontrol.properties file. You must specify at least one main goal, or Cruise Control will crash. Note If you change the preset main optimization goals, you must ensure that the configured hard.goals are a subset of the main optimization goals that you configured. Otherwise, errors will occur when generating optimization proposals. 13.5.5. Default optimization goals Cruise Control uses the default optimization goals list to generate the cached optimization proposal . For more information, see Section 13.6, "Optimization proposals overview" . You can override the default optimization goals at runtime by setting user-provided optimization goals . The following default optimization goals are preset in the default.goals property of the cruisecontrol.properties file in descending priority order: You must specify at least one default goal, or Cruise Control will crash. To modify the default optimization goals, specify a list of goals in the default.goals property in descending priority order. Default goals must be a subset of the main optimization goals; use fully-qualified domain names. 13.5.6. User-provided optimization goals User-provided optimization goals narrow down the configured default goals for a particular optimization proposal. You can set them, as required, as parameters in HTTP requests to the /rebalance endpoint. For more information, see Section 13.9, "Generating optimization proposals" . User-provided optimization goals can generate optimization proposals for different scenarios. For example, you might want to optimize leader replica distribution across the Kafka cluster without considering disk capacity or disk utilization. So, you send a request to the /rebalance endpoint containing a single goal for leader replica distribution. User-provided optimization goals must: Include all configured hard goals , or an error occurs Be a subset of the main optimization goals To ignore the configured hard goals in an optimization proposal, add the skip_hard_goals_check=true parameter to the request. Additional resources Cruise Control configuration Configurations in the Cruise Control Wiki 13.6. Optimization proposals overview An optimization proposal is a summary of proposed changes that would produce a more balanced Kafka cluster, with partition workloads distributed more evenly among the brokers. Each optimization proposal is based on the set of optimization goals that was used to generate it, subject to any configured capacity limits on broker resources. All optimization proposals are estimates of the impact of a proposed rebalance. You can approve or reject a proposal. You cannot approve a cluster rebalance without first generating the optimization proposal. You can run the optimization proposal using one of the following endpoints: /rebalance /add_broker /remove_broker 13.6.1. Rebalancing endpoints You specify a rebalancing endpoint when you send a POST request to generate an optimization proposal. /rebalance The /rebalance endpoint runs a full rebalance by moving replicas across all the brokers in the cluster. /add_broker The add_broker endpoint is used after scaling up a Kafka cluster by adding one or more brokers. Normally, after scaling up a Kafka cluster, new brokers are used to host only the partitions of newly created topics. If no new topics are created, the newly added brokers are not used and the existing brokers remain under the same load. By using the add_broker endpoint immediately after adding brokers to the cluster, the rebalancing operation moves replicas from existing brokers to the newly added brokers. You specify the new brokers as a brokerid list in the POST request. /remove_broker The /remove_broker endpoint is used before scaling down a Kafka cluster by removing one or more brokers. If you scale down a Kafka cluster, brokers are shut down even if they host replicas. This can lead to under-replicated partitions and possibly result in some partitions being under their minimum ISR (in-sync replicas). To avoid this potential problem, the /remove_broker endpoint moves replicas off the brokers that are going to be removed. When these brokers are not hosting replicas anymore, you can safely run the scaling down operation. You specify the brokers you're removing as a brokerid list in the POST request. In general, use the /rebalance endpoint to rebalance a Kafka cluster by spreading the load across brokers. Use the /add-broker endpoint and /remove_broker endpoint only if you want to scale your cluster up or down and rebalance the replicas accordingly. The procedure to run a rebalance is actually the same across the three different endpoints. The only difference is with listing brokers that have been added or will be removed to the request. 13.6.2. Approving or rejecting an optimization proposal An optimization proposal summary shows the proposed scope of changes. The summary is returned in a response to a HTTP request through the Cruise Control API. When you make a POST request to the /rebalance endpoint, an optimization proposal summary is returned in the response. Returning an optimization proposal summary curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance' Use the summary to decide whether to approve or reject an optimization proposal. Approving an optimization proposal You approve the optimization proposal by making a POST request to the /rebalance endpoint and setting the dryrun parameter to false (default true ). Cruise Control applies the proposal to the Kafka cluster and starts a cluster rebalance operation. Rejecting an optimization proposal If you choose not to approve an optimization proposal, you can change the optimization goals or update any of the rebalance performance tuning options , and then generate another proposal. You can resend a request without the dryrun parameter to generate a new optimization proposal. Use the optimization proposal to assess the movements required for a rebalance. For example, a summary describes inter-broker and intra-broker movements. Inter-broker rebalancing moves data between separate brokers. Intra-broker rebalancing moves data between disks on the same broker when you are using a JBOD storage configuration. Such information can be useful even if you don't go ahead and approve the proposal. You might reject an optimization proposal, or delay its approval, because of the additional load on a Kafka cluster when rebalancing. In the following example, the proposal suggests the rebalancing of data between separate brokers. The rebalance involves the movement of 55 partition replicas, totaling 12MB of data, across the brokers. Though the inter-broker movement of partition replicas has a high impact on performance, the total amount of data is not large. If the total data was much larger, you could reject the proposal, or time when to approve the rebalance to limit the impact on the performance of the Kafka cluster. Rebalance performance tuning options can help reduce the impact of data movement. If you can extend the rebalance period, you can divide the rebalance into smaller batches. Fewer data movements at a single time reduces the load on the cluster. Example optimization proposal summary Optimization has 55 inter-broker replica (12 MB) moves, 0 intra-broker replica (0 MB) moves and 24 leadership moves with a cluster model of 5 recent windows and 100.000% of the partitions covered. Excluded Topics: []. Excluded Brokers For Leadership: []. Excluded Brokers For Replica Move: []. Counts: 3 brokers 343 replicas 7 topics. On-demand Balancedness Score Before (78.012) After (82.912). Provision Status: RIGHT_SIZED. The proposal will also move 24 partition leaders to different brokers, which has a low impact on performance. The balancedness scores are measurements of the overall balance of the Kafka Cluster before and after the optimization proposal is approved. A balancedness score is based on optimization goals. If all goals are satisfied, the score is 100. The score is reduced for each goal that will not be met. Compare the balancedness scores to see whether the Kafka cluster is less balanced than it could be following a rebalance. The provision status indicates whether the current cluster configuration supports the optimization goals. Check the provision status to see if you should add or remove brokers. Table 13.2. Optimization proposal provision status Status Description RIGHT_SIZED The cluster has an appropriate number of brokers to satisfy the optimization goals. UNDER_PROVISIONED The cluster is under-provisioned and requires more brokers to satisfy the optimization goals. OVER_PROVISIONED The cluster is over-provisioned and requires fewer brokers to satisfy the optimization goals. UNDECIDED The status is not relevant or it has not yet been decided. 13.6.3. Optimization proposal summary properties The following table describes the properties contained in an optimization proposal. Table 13.3. Properties contained in an optimization proposal summary Property Description n inter-broker replica (y MB) moves n : The number of partition replicas that will be moved between separate brokers. Performance impact during rebalance operation : Relatively high. y MB : The sum of the size of each partition replica that will be moved to a separate broker. Performance impact during rebalance operation : Variable. The larger the number of MBs, the longer the cluster rebalance will take to complete. n intra-broker replica (y MB) moves n : The total number of partition replicas that will be transferred between the disks of the cluster's brokers. Performance impact during rebalance operation : Relatively high, but less than inter-broker replica moves . y MB : The sum of the size of each partition replica that will be moved between disks on the same broker. Performance impact during rebalance operation : Variable. The larger the number, the longer the cluster rebalance will take to complete. Moving a large amount of data between disks on the same broker has less impact than between separate brokers (see inter-broker replica moves ). n excluded topics The number of topics excluded from the calculation of partition replica/leader movements in the optimization proposal. You can exclude topics in one of the following ways: In the cruisecontrol.properties file, specify a regular expression in the topics.excluded.from.partition.movement property. In a POST request to the /rebalance endpoint, specify a regular expression in the excluded_topics parameter. Topics that match the regular expression are listed in the response and will be excluded from the cluster rebalance. n leadership moves n : The number of partitions whose leaders will be switched to different replicas. Performance impact during rebalance operation : Relatively low. n recent windows n : The number of metrics windows upon which the optimization proposal is based. n% of the partitions covered n% : The percentage of partitions in the Kafka cluster covered by the optimization proposal. On-demand Balancedness Score Before (nn.yyy) After (nn.yyy) Measurements of the overall balance of a Kafka Cluster. Cruise Control assigns a Balancedness Score to every optimization goal based on several factors, including priority (the goal's position in the list of default.goals or user-provided goals). The On-demand Balancedness Score is calculated by subtracting the sum of the Balancedness Score of each violated soft goal from 100. The Before score is based on the current configuration of the Kafka cluster. The After score is based on the generated optimization proposal. 13.6.4. Cached optimization proposal Cruise Control maintains a cached optimization proposal based on the configured default optimization goals . Generated from the workload model, the cached optimization proposal is updated every 15 minutes to reflect the current state of the Kafka cluster. The most recent cached optimization proposal is returned when the following goal configurations are used: The default optimization goals User-provided optimization goals that can be met by the current cached proposal To change the cached optimization proposal refresh interval, edit the proposal.expiration.ms setting in the cruisecontrol.properties file. Consider a shorter interval for fast changing clusters, although this increases the load on the Cruise Control server. Additional resources Optimization goals overview Generating optimization proposals Initiating a cluster rebalance 13.7. Rebalance performance tuning overview You can adjust several performance tuning options for cluster rebalances. These options control how partition replicas and leadership movements in a rebalance are executed, as well as the bandwidth that is allocated to a rebalance operation. Partition reassignment commands Optimization proposals are composed of separate partition reassignment commands. When you initiate a proposal, the Cruise Control server applies these commands to the Kafka cluster. A partition reassignment command consists of either of the following types of operations: Partition movement : Involves transferring the partition replica and its data to a new location. Partition movements can take one of two forms: Inter-broker movement: The partition replica is moved to a log directory on a different broker. Intra-broker movement: The partition replica is moved to a different log directory on the same broker. Leadership movement : Involves switching the leader of the partition's replicas. Cruise Control issues partition reassignment commands to the Kafka cluster in batches. The performance of the cluster during the rebalance is affected by the number of each type of movement contained in each batch. To configure partition reassignment commands, see Rebalance tuning options . Replica movement strategies Cluster rebalance performance is also influenced by the replica movement strategy that is applied to the batches of partition reassignment commands. By default, Cruise Control uses the BaseReplicaMovementStrategy , which applies the commands in the order in which they were generated. However, if there are some very large partition reassignments early in the proposal, this strategy can slow down the application of the other reassignments. Cruise Control provides three alternative replica movement strategies that can be applied to optimization proposals: PrioritizeSmallReplicaMovementStrategy : Order reassignments in ascending size. PrioritizeLargeReplicaMovementStrategy : Order reassignments in descending size. PostponeUrpReplicaMovementStrategy : Prioritize reassignments for replicas of partitions which have no out-of-sync replicas. These strategies can be configured as a sequence. The first strategy attempts to compare two partition reassignments using its internal logic. If the reassignments are equivalent, then it passes them to the strategy in the sequence to decide the order, and so on. To configure replica movement strategies, see Rebalance tuning options . Rebalance tuning options Cruise Control provides several configuration options for tuning rebalance parameters. These options are set in the following ways: As properties, in the default Cruise Control configuration, in the cruisecontrol.properties file As parameters in POST requests to the /rebalance endpoint The relevant configurations for both methods are summarized in the following table. Table 13.4. Rebalance performance tuning configuration Cruise Control properties KafkaRebalance parameters Default Description num.concurrent.partition.movements.per.broker concurrent_partition_movements_per_broker 5 The maximum number of inter-broker partition movements in each partition reassignment batch num.concurrent.intra.broker.partition.movements concurrent_intra_broker_partition_movements 2 The maximum number of intra-broker partition movements in each partition reassignment batch num.concurrent.leader.movements concurrent_leader_movements 1000 The maximum number of partition leadership changes in each partition reassignment batch default.replication.throttle replication_throttle Null (no limit) The bandwidth (in bytes per second) to assign to partition reassignment default.replica.movement.strategies replica_movement_strategies BaseReplicaMovementStrategy The list of strategies (in priority order) used to determine the order in which partition reassignment commands are executed for generated proposals. There are three strategies: PrioritizeSmallReplicaMovementStrategy , PrioritizeLargeReplicaMovementStrategy , and PostponeUrpReplicaMovementStrategy . For the server setting, use a comma-separated list with the fully qualified names of the strategy class (add com.linkedin.kafka.cruisecontrol.executor.strategy. to the start of each class name). For the rebalance parameters, use a comma-separated list of the class names of the replica movement strategies. Changing the default settings affects the length of time that the rebalance takes to complete, as well as the load placed on the Kafka cluster during the rebalance. Using lower values reduces the load but increases the amount of time taken, and vice versa. Additional resources Configurations in the Cruise Control Wiki REST APIs in the Cruise Control Wiki 13.8. Cruise Control configuration The config/cruisecontrol.properties file contains the configuration for Cruise Control. The file consists of properties in one of the following types: String Number Boolean You can specify and configure all the properties listed in the Configurations section of the Cruise Control Wiki. Capacity configuration Cruise Control uses capacity limits to determine if certain resource-based optimization goals are being broken. An attempted optimization fails if one or more of these resource-based goals is set as a hard goal and then broken. This prevents the optimization from being used to generate an optimization proposal. You specify capacity limits for Kafka broker resources in one of the following three .json files in cruise-control/config : capacityJBOD.json : For use in JBOD Kafka deployments (the default file). capacity.json : For use in non-JBOD Kafka deployments where each broker has the same number of CPU cores. capacityCores.json : For use in non-JBOD Kafka deployments where each broker has varying numbers of CPU cores. Set the file in the capacity.config.file property in cruisecontrol.properties . The selected file will be used for broker capacity resolution. For example: Capacity limits can be set for the following broker resources in the described units: DISK : Disk storage in MB CPU : CPU utilization as a percentage (0-100) or as a number of cores NW_IN : Inbound network throughput in KB per second NW_OUT : Outbound network throughput in KB per second To apply the same capacity limits to every broker monitored by Cruise Control, set capacity limits for broker ID -1 . To set different capacity limits for individual brokers, specify each broker ID and its capacity configuration. Example capacity limits configuration { "brokerCapacities":[ { "brokerId": "-1", "capacity": { "DISK": "100000", "CPU": "100", "NW_IN": "10000", "NW_OUT": "10000" }, "doc": "This is the default capacity. Capacity unit used for disk is in MB, cpu is in percentage, network throughput is in KB." }, { "brokerId": "0", "capacity": { "DISK": "500000", "CPU": "100", "NW_IN": "50000", "NW_OUT": "50000" }, "doc": "This overrides the capacity for broker 0." } ] } For more information, see Populating the Capacity Configuration File in the Cruise Control Wiki. Log cleanup policy for Cruise Control Metrics topic It is important that the auto-created __CruiseControlMetrics topic (see auto-created topics ) has a log cleanup policy of DELETE rather than COMPACT . Otherwise, records that are needed by Cruise Control might be removed. As described in Section 13.3, "Deploying the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter" , setting the following options in the Kafka configuration file ensures that the COMPACT log cleanup policy is correctly set: cruise.control.metrics.topic.auto.create=true cruise.control.metrics.topic.num.partitions=1 cruise.control.metrics.topic.replication.factor=1 If topic auto-creation is disabled in the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter ( cruise.control.metrics.topic.auto.create=false ), but enabled in the Kafka cluster, then the __CruiseControlMetrics topic is still automatically created by the broker. In this case, you must change the log cleanup policy of the __CruiseControlMetrics topic to DELETE using the kafka-configs.sh tool. Get the current configuration of the __CruiseControlMetrics topic: opt/kafka/bin/kafka-configs.sh --bootstrap-server <broker_address> --entity-type topics --entity-name __CruiseControlMetrics --describe Change the log cleanup policy in the topic configuration: /opt/kafka/bin/kafka-configs.sh --bootstrap-server <broker_address> --entity-type topics --entity-name __CruiseControlMetrics --alter --add-config cleanup.policy=delete If topic auto-creation is disabled in both the Cruise Control Metrics Reporter and the Kafka cluster, you must create the __CruiseControlMetrics topic manually and then configure it to use the DELETE log cleanup policy using the kafka-configs.sh tool. For more information, see Section 7.9, "Modifying a topic configuration" . Logging configuration Cruise Control uses log4j1 for all server logging. To change the default configuration, edit the log4j.properties file in /opt/cruise-control/config/log4j.properties . You must restart the Cruise Control server before the changes take effect. 13.9. Generating optimization proposals When you make a POST request to the /rebalance endpoint, Cruise Control generates an optimization proposal to rebalance the Kafka cluster based on the optimization goals provided. You can use the results of the optimization proposal to rebalance your Kafka cluster. You can run the optimization proposal using one of the following endpoints: /rebalance /add_broker /remove_broker The endpoint you use depends on whether you are rebalancing across all the brokers already running in the Kafka cluster; or you want to rebalance after scaling up or before scaling down your Kafka cluster. For more information, see Rebalancing endpoints with broker scaling . The optimization proposal is generated as a dry run , unless the dryrun parameter is supplied and set to false . In "dry run mode", Cruise Control generates the optimization proposal and the estimated result, but doesn't initiate the proposal by rebalancing the cluster. You can analyze the information returned in the optimization proposal and decide whether to approve it. Use the following parameters to make requests to the endpoints: dryrun type: boolean, default: true Informs Cruise Control whether you want to generate an optimization proposal only ( true ), or generate an optimization proposal and perform a cluster rebalance ( false ). When dryrun=true (the default), you can also pass the verbose parameter to return more detailed information about the state of the Kafka cluster. This includes metrics for the load on each Kafka broker before and after the optimization proposal is applied, and the differences between the before and after values. excluded_topics type: regex A regular expression that matches the topics to exclude from the calculation of the optimization proposal. goals type: list of strings, default: the configured default.goals list List of user-provided optimization goals to use to prepare the optimization proposal. If goals are not supplied, the configured default.goals list in the cruisecontrol.properties file is used. skip_hard_goals_check type: boolean, default: false By default, Cruise Control checks that the user-provided optimization goals (in the goals parameter) contain all the configured hard goals (in hard.goals ). A request fails if you supply goals that are not a subset of the configured hard.goals . Set skip_hard_goals_check to true if you want to generate an optimization proposal with user-provided optimization goals that do not include all the configured hard.goals . json type: boolean, default: false Controls the type of response returned by the Cruise Control server. If not supplied, or set to false , then Cruise Control returns text formatted for display on the command line. If you want to extract elements of the returned information programmatically, set json=true . This will return JSON formatted text that can be piped to tools such as jq , or parsed in scripts and programs. verbose type: boolean, default: false Controls the level of detail in responses that are returned by the Cruise Control server. Can be used with dryrun=true . Note Other parameters are available. For more information, see REST APIs in the Cruise Control Wiki. Prerequisites Kafka is running. You have configured Cruise Control . (Optional for scaling up) You have installed new brokers on hosts to include in the rebalance. Procedure Generate an optimization proposal using a POST request to the /rebalance , /add_broker , or /remove_broker endpoint. Example request to /rebalance using default goals curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance' The cached optimization proposal is immediately returned. Note If NotEnoughValidWindows is returned, Cruise Control has not yet recorded enough metrics data to generate an optimization proposal. Wait a few minutes and then resend the request. Example request to /rebalance using specified goals curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?goals=RackAwareGoal,ReplicaCapacityGoal' If the request satisfies the supplied goals, the cached optimization proposal is immediately returned. Otherwise, a new optimization proposal is generated using the supplied goals; this takes longer to calculate. You can enforce this behavior by adding the ignore_proposal_cache=true parameter to the request. Example request to /rebalance using specified goals without hard goals curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?goals=RackAwareGoal,ReplicaCapacityGoal,ReplicaDistributionGoal&skip_hard_goal_check=true' Example request to /add_broker that includes specified brokers curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/add_broker?brokerid=3,4' The request includes the IDs of the new brokers only. For example, this request adds brokers with the IDs 3 and 4 . Replicas are moved to the new brokers from existing brokers when rebalancing. Example request to /remove_broker that excludes specified brokers curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/remove_broker?brokerid=3,4' The request includes the IDs of the brokers being excluded only. For example, this request excludes brokers with the IDs 3 and 4 . Replicas are moved from the brokers being removed to other existing brokers when rebalancing. Note If a broker that is being removed has excluded topics, replicas are still moved. Review the optimization proposal contained in the response. The properties describe the pending cluster rebalance operation. The proposal contains a high level summary of the proposed optimization, followed by summaries for each default optimization goal, and the expected cluster state after the proposal has executed. Pay particular attention to the following information: The Cluster load after rebalance summary. If it meets your requirements, you should assess the impact of the proposed changes using the high level summary. n inter-broker replica (y MB) moves indicates how much data will be moved across the network between brokers. The higher the value, the greater the potential performance impact on the Kafka cluster during the rebalance. n intra-broker replica (y MB) moves indicates how much data will be moved within the brokers themselves (between disks). The higher the value, the greater the potential performance impact on individual brokers (although less than that of n inter-broker replica (y MB) moves ). The number of leadership moves. This has a negligible impact on the performance of the cluster during the rebalance. Asynchronous responses The Cruise Control REST API endpoints timeout after 10 seconds by default, although proposal generation continues on the server. A timeout might occur if the most recent cached optimization proposal is not ready, or if user-provided optimization goals were specified with ignore_proposal_cache=true . To allow you to retrieve the optimization proposal at a later time, take note of the request's unique identifier, which is given in the header of responses from the /rebalance endpoint. To obtain the response using curl , specify the verbose ( -v ) option: Here is an example header: * Connected to cruise-control-server (::1) port 9090 (#0) > POST /kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance HTTP/1.1 > Host: cc-host:9090 > User-Agent: curl/7.70.0 > Accept: / > * Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2023 15:19:26 GMT < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=node01wk6vjzjj12go13m81o7no5p7h9.node0; Path=/ < Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT < User-Task-ID: 274b8095-d739-4840-85b9-f4cfaaf5c201 < Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8 < Cruise-Control-Version: 2.0.103.redhat-00002 < Cruise-Control-Commit_Id: 58975c9d5d0a78dd33cd67d4bcb497c9fd42ae7c < Content-Length: 12368 < Server: Jetty(9.4.26.v20200117-redhat-00001) If an optimization proposal is not ready within the timeout, you can re-submit the POST request, this time including the User-Task-ID of the original request in the header: curl -v -X POST -H 'User-Task-ID: 274b8095-d739-4840-85b9-f4cfaaf5c201' 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance' What to do Section 13.10, "Approving an optimization proposal" 13.10. Approving an optimization proposal If you are satisfied with your most recently generated optimization proposal, you can instruct Cruise Control to initiate a cluster rebalance and begin reassigning partitions. Leave as little time as possible between generating an optimization proposal and initiating the cluster rebalance. If some time has passed since you generated the original optimization proposal, the cluster state might have changed. Therefore, the cluster rebalance that is initiated might be different to the one you reviewed. If in doubt, first generate a new optimization proposal. Only one cluster rebalance, with a status of "Active", can be in progress at a time. Prerequisites You have generated an optimization proposal from Cruise Control. Procedure Send a POST request to the /rebalance , /add_broker , or /remove_broker endpoint with the dryrun=false parameter: If you used the /add_broker or /remove_broker endpoint to generate a proposal that included or excluded brokers, use the same endpoint to perform the rebalance with or without the specified brokers. Example request to /rebalance curl -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?dryrun=false' Example request to /add_broker curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/add_broker?dryrun=false&brokerid=3,4' Example request to /remove_broker curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/remove_broker?dryrun=false&brokerid=3,4' Cruise Control initiates the cluster rebalance and returns the optimization proposal. Check the changes that are summarized in the optimization proposal. If the changes are not what you expect, you can stop the rebalance . Check the progress of the cluster rebalance using the /user_tasks endpoint. The cluster rebalance in progress has a status of "Active". To view all cluster rebalance tasks executed on the Cruise Control server: curl 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/user_tasks' USER TASK ID CLIENT ADDRESS START TIME STATUS REQUEST URL c459316f-9eb5-482f-9d2d-97b5a4cd294d 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_16:10:29 UTC Active POST /kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?dryrun=false 445e2fc3-6531-4243-b0a6-36ef7c5059b4 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_14:21:26 UTC Completed GET /kafkacruisecontrol/state?json=true 05c37737-16d1-4e33-8e2b-800dee9f1b01 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_14:36:11 UTC Completed GET /kafkacruisecontrol/state?json=true aebae987-985d-4871-8cfb-6134ecd504ab 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_16:10:04 UTC To view the status of a particular cluster rebalance task, supply the user-task-ids parameter and the task ID: (Optional) Removing brokers when scaling down After a successful rebalance you can stop any brokers you excluded in order to scale down the Kafka cluster. Check that each broker being removed does not have any live partitions in its log ( log.dirs ). ls -l <LogDir> | grep -E '^d' | grep -vE '[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-z0-9]+-deleteUSD' If a log directory does not match the regular expression \.[a-z0-9]-deleteUSD , active partitions are still present. If you have active partitions, check the rebalance has finished or the configuration for the optimization proposal. You can run the proposal again. Make sure that there are no active partitions before moving on to the step. Stop the broker. su - kafka /opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-stop.sh Confirm that the broker has stopped. jcmd | grep kafka 13.11. Stopping an active cluster rebalance You can stop the cluster rebalance that is currently in progress. This instructs Cruise Control to finish the current batch of partition reassignments and then stop the rebalance. When the rebalance has stopped, completed partition reassignments have already been applied; therefore, the state of the Kafka cluster is different when compared to before the start of the rebalance operation. If further rebalancing is required, you should generate a new optimization proposal. Note The performance of the Kafka cluster in the intermediate (stopped) state might be worse than in the initial state. Prerequisites A cluster rebalance is in progress (indicated by a status of "Active"). Procedure Send a POST request to the /stop_proposal_execution endpoint: Additional resources Generating optimization proposals

Commands:
sudo mkdir /opt/cruise-control
unzip amq-streams-<version>-cruise-control-bin.zip -d /opt/cruise-control
sudo chown -R kafka:kafka /opt/cruise-control
/opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-stop.sh
metric.reporters=com.linkedin.kafka.cruisecontrol.metricsreporter.CruiseControlMetricsReporter
cruise.control.metrics.topic.auto.create=true cruise.control.metrics.topic.num.partitions=1 cruise.control.metrics.topic.replication.factor=1
/opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-start.sh -daemon /opt/kafka/config/kraft/server.properties
The Kafka cluster to control. bootstrap.servers=localhost:9092 1 The replication factor of Kafka metric sample store topic sample.store.topic.replication.factor=2 2 The configuration for the BrokerCapacityConfigFileResolver (supports JBOD, non-JBOD, and heterogeneous CPU core capacities) #capacity.config.file=config/capacity.json #capacity.config.file=config/capacityCores.json capacity.config.file=config/capacityJBOD.json 3 The list of goals to optimize the Kafka cluster for with pre-computed proposals default.goals={List of default optimization goals} 4 The list of supported goals goals={list of main optimization goals} 5 The list of supported hard goals hard.goals={List of hard goals} 6 How often should the cached proposal be expired and recalculated if necessary proposal.expiration.ms=60000 7 #Set failure detection to true kafka.broker.failure.detection.enable=true 8
cd /opt/cruise-control/ ./kafka-cruise-control-start.sh config/cruisecontrol.properties <port_number>
curl -X GET 'http://<cc_host>:<cc_port>/kafkacruisecontrol/state'
RackAwareGoal; MinTopicLeadersPerBrokerGoal; ReplicaCapacityGoal; DiskCapacityGoal; NetworkInboundCapacityGoal; NetworkOutboundCapacityGoal; CpuCapacityGoal
RackAwareGoal; MinTopicLeadersPerBrokerGoal; ReplicaCapacityGoal; DiskCapacityGoal; NetworkInboundCapacityGoal; NetworkOutboundCapacityGoal; ReplicaDistributionGoal; PotentialNwOutGoal; DiskUsageDistributionGoal; NetworkInboundUsageDistributionGoal; NetworkOutboundUsageDistributionGoal; CpuUsageDistributionGoal; TopicReplicaDistributionGoal; LeaderReplicaDistributionGoal; LeaderBytesInDistributionGoal; PreferredLeaderElectionGoal
RackAwareGoal; MinTopicLeadersPerBrokerGoal; ReplicaCapacityGoal; DiskCapacityGoal; NetworkInboundCapacityGoal; NetworkOutboundCapacityGoal; CpuCapacityGoal; ReplicaDistributionGoal; PotentialNwOutGoal; DiskUsageDistributionGoal; NetworkInboundUsageDistributionGoal; NetworkOutboundUsageDistributionGoal; CpuUsageDistributionGoal; TopicReplicaDistributionGoal; LeaderReplicaDistributionGoal; LeaderBytesInDistributionGoal
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance'
Optimization has 55 inter-broker replica (12 MB) moves, 0 intra-broker replica (0 MB) moves and 24 leadership moves with a cluster model of 5 recent windows and 100.000% of the partitions covered. Excluded Topics: []. Excluded Brokers For Leadership: []. Excluded Brokers For Replica Move: []. Counts: 3 brokers 343 replicas 7 topics. On-demand Balancedness Score Before (78.012) After (82.912). Provision Status: RIGHT_SIZED.
capacity.config.file=config/capacityJBOD.json
{ "brokerCapacities":[ { "brokerId": "-1", "capacity": { "DISK": "100000", "CPU": "100", "NW_IN": "10000", "NW_OUT": "10000" }, "doc": "This is the default capacity. Capacity unit used for disk is in MB, cpu is in percentage, network throughput is in KB." }, { "brokerId": "0", "capacity": { "DISK": "500000", "CPU": "100", "NW_IN": "50000", "NW_OUT": "50000" }, "doc": "This overrides the capacity for broker 0." } ] }
opt/kafka/bin/kafka-configs.sh --bootstrap-server <broker_address> --entity-type topics --entity-name __CruiseControlMetrics --describe
/opt/kafka/bin/kafka-configs.sh --bootstrap-server <broker_address> --entity-type topics --entity-name __CruiseControlMetrics --alter --add-config cleanup.policy=delete
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?goals=RackAwareGoal,ReplicaCapacityGoal'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?goals=RackAwareGoal,ReplicaCapacityGoal,ReplicaDistributionGoal&skip_hard_goal_check=true'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/add_broker?brokerid=3,4'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/remove_broker?brokerid=3,4'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance'
* Connected to cruise-control-server (::1) port 9090 (#0) > POST /kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance HTTP/1.1 > Host: cc-host:9090 > User-Agent: curl/7.70.0 > Accept: / > * Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2023 15:19:26 GMT < Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=node01wk6vjzjj12go13m81o7no5p7h9.node0; Path=/ < Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT < User-Task-ID: 274b8095-d739-4840-85b9-f4cfaaf5c201 < Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8 < Cruise-Control-Version: 2.0.103.redhat-00002 < Cruise-Control-Commit_Id: 58975c9d5d0a78dd33cd67d4bcb497c9fd42ae7c < Content-Length: 12368 < Server: Jetty(9.4.26.v20200117-redhat-00001)
curl -v -X POST -H 'User-Task-ID: 274b8095-d739-4840-85b9-f4cfaaf5c201' 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance'
curl -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?dryrun=false'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/add_broker?dryrun=false&brokerid=3,4'
curl -v -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/remove_broker?dryrun=false&brokerid=3,4'
curl 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/user_tasks' USER TASK ID CLIENT ADDRESS START TIME STATUS REQUEST URL c459316f-9eb5-482f-9d2d-97b5a4cd294d 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_16:10:29 UTC Active POST /kafkacruisecontrol/rebalance?dryrun=false 445e2fc3-6531-4243-b0a6-36ef7c5059b4 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_14:21:26 UTC Completed GET /kafkacruisecontrol/state?json=true 05c37737-16d1-4e33-8e2b-800dee9f1b01 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_14:36:11 UTC Completed GET /kafkacruisecontrol/state?json=true aebae987-985d-4871-8cfb-6134ecd504ab 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 2020-06-01_16:10:04 UTC
curl 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/user_tasks?user_task_ids=c459316f-9eb5-482f-9d2d-97b5a4cd294d'
ls -l <LogDir> | grep -E '^d' | grep -vE '[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-z0-9]+-deleteUSD'
su - kafka /opt/kafka/bin/kafka-server-stop.sh
jcmd | grep kafka
curl -X POST 'cruise-control-server:9090/kafkacruisecontrol/stop_proposal_execution'