Sending and Receiving Events with Azure Event Hubs

This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough on how to send events to and receive events from Azure Event Hubs using various client libraries.

Choose your language:

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

  • An Azure subscription.
  • An Azure Event Hubs namespace and an Event Hub created within it.
  • The connection string for your Event Hubs namespace.

If you need to create an Event Hub, follow the Create Event Hub guide.

Step 2: Install Client Libraries

Install the appropriate Azure Event Hubs client library for your chosen language.

dotnet add package Azure.Messaging.EventHubs

Step 3: Sending Events

This section demonstrates how to send a batch of events to your Event Hub.

C# Example

// Replace with your connection string and event hub name
string connectionString = "";
string eventHubName = "";

await using var producerClient = new EventHubProducerClient(connectionString, eventHubName);

using EventDataBatch eventBatch = await producerClient.CreateBatchAsync();

if (!eventBatch.TryAdd(new EventData(BinaryData.FromString("First event"))))
{
    throw new Exception("Failed to add event to batch.");
}

if (!eventBatch.TryAdd(new EventData(BinaryData.FromString("Second event"))))
{
    throw new Exception("Failed to add event to batch.");
}

await producerClient.SendAsync(eventBatch);
Console.WriteLine("Events sent successfully.");

Step 4: Receiving Events

This section demonstrates how to receive events from your Event Hub using a consumer group.

C# Example

// Replace with your connection string and event hub name
string connectionString = "";
string eventHubName = "";
string consumerGroup = "$Default"; // Or your custom consumer group name

await using var consumerClient = new EventHubConsumerClient(consumerGroup, connectionString, eventHubName);

Console.WriteLine("Listening for events...");

await foreach (PartitionEvent partitionEvent in consumerClient.ReadEventsAsync())
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Received event: {partitionEvent.Data.EventBody.ToString()}");
}

Step 5: Best Practices and Further Learning

  • Batching: Send events in batches to improve throughput and reduce costs.
  • Error Handling: Implement robust error handling for transient network issues and other exceptions.
  • Consumer Groups: Use distinct consumer groups for different applications or services reading from the same Event Hub.
  • Partitioning: Understand how partitions affect event ordering and parallel processing.
  • Monitoring: Utilize Azure Monitor to track Event Hub metrics and set up alerts.

For more advanced scenarios, explore topics like schema enforcement, dead-letter queues, and integrating with Azure Stream Analytics.

Read more in the Event Hubs Concepts section.