Welcome to Azure Event Hubs

Azure Event Hubs is a big data streaming platform and event ingestion service. It can receive and process millions of events per second. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to get started building applications with Event Hubs.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

  • An Azure subscription. If you don't have one, you can create a free account.
  • The Azure CLI installed or access to the Azure portal.
  • Basic understanding of event-driven architectures.

Step 1: Create an Event Hubs Namespace

An Event Hubs namespace is a logical container for your Event Hubs. All Event Hubs reside within a namespace.

Using Azure Portal

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal.
  2. Click "Create a resource".
  3. Search for "Event Hubs" and select it.
  4. Click "Create".
  5. Fill in the required details: Subscription, Resource group, Region, Namespace name.
  6. Choose a pricing tier (e.g., Basic, Standard).
  7. Click "Review + create" and then "Create".

Using Azure CLI

Replace `MyResourceGroup` and `myeventhubspace` with your desired names.

az group create --name MyResourceGroup --location eastus az eventhubs namespace create --resource-group MyResourceGroup --name myeventhubspace --location eastus --sku Standard

Step 2: Create an Event Hub

Once you have a namespace, you can create one or more Event Hubs within it. An Event Hub is where the actual event data is sent and stored.

Using Azure Portal

  1. Go to your Event Hubs namespace in the Azure portal.
  2. Under "Entities", click "Event Hubs".
  3. Click "+ Event Hub".
  4. Enter a name for your Event Hub (e.g., `my-data-hub`).
  5. Configure settings like partition count and message retention period.
  6. Click "Create".

Using Azure CLI

Replace `MyResourceGroup`, `myeventhubspace`, and `my-data-hub` accordingly.

az eventhubs eventhub create --resource-group MyResourceGroup --namespace-name myeventhubspace --name my-data-hub --partition-count 2 --message-retention-in-days 7

Step 3: Get Connection Strings

To connect your applications to Event Hubs, you'll need connection strings. These contain authorization credentials.

Using Azure Portal

  1. Navigate to your Event Hubs namespace.
  2. Under "Settings", click "Shared access policies".
  3. You can use the `RootManageSharedAccessKey` or create a new policy with specific permissions.
  4. Click on a policy name.
  5. Copy either the "Primary Connection String" or "Secondary Connection String".

Using Azure CLI

az eventhubs namespace authorization-rule list --resource-group MyResourceGroup --namespace-name myeventhubspace --query "[].{KeyName:name, PrimaryKey:primaryKey}"

This command lists authorization rules and their keys. You can then retrieve the full connection string using:

az eventhubs namespace authorization-rule keys list --resource-group MyResourceGroup --namespace-name myeventhubspace --name RootManageSharedAccessKey --query "primaryConnectionString" --output tsv
Security Note: Treat connection strings with care, as they grant access to your Event Hubs. Avoid hardcoding them directly into your application code. Use environment variables or Azure Key Vault.

Step 4: Sending and Receiving Events

Now that your Event Hub is set up, you can start sending and receiving events. We recommend using the official Azure SDKs for your preferred programming language.

Example: Sending Events (Conceptual)

Here's a simplified conceptual example using a hypothetical SDK:

// Placeholder for Python SDK example from azure.eventhub import EventHubProducer, EventData connection_str = "YOUR_EVENT_HUBS_CONNECTION_STRING" eventhub_name = "my-data-hub" producer = EventHubProducer.from_connection_string(connection_str, eventhub_name) events_to_send = [ EventData("{\"message\": \"Hello, Event Hubs!\"}"), EventData("{\"message\": \"Another event.\"}") ] producer.send_batch(events_to_send) producer.close()

Example: Receiving Events (Conceptual)

And a conceptual example for receiving events:

// Placeholder for C# SDK example using Azure.Messaging.EventHubs; using Azure.Messaging.EventHubs.Consumer; using System; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; string connectionString = "YOUR_EVENT_HUBS_CONNECTION_STRING"; string eventHubName = "my-data-hub"; string consumerGroup = EventHubConsumerClient.DefaultConsumerGroupName; await using var client = new EventHubConsumerClient(consumerGroup, connectionString, eventHubName); await foreach (PartitionEvent partitionEvent in client.ReadEventsAsync()) { Console.WriteLine($"Received event: {Encoding.UTF8.GetString(partitionEvent.Data.EventBody.ToArray())}"); }

Refer to the Azure Event Hubs SDK documentation for detailed examples in your language.

Next Steps

Congratulations! You've successfully set up Azure Event Hubs. Here are some ideas for what to do next:

  • Explore different SDKs and client libraries.
  • Learn about Event Hubs partitions and throughput management.
  • Integrate with Azure Functions or Azure Stream Analytics for real-time processing.
  • Implement robust error handling and retry mechanisms.