What is CSA Operator?

Cloudera Streaming Analytics (CSA) Operator allows you to deploy and manage the Streaming Analytics components of Cloudera Data Platform (CDP), Flink and SQL Stream Builder (SSB), as container applications on Kubernetes.

CSA Operator is based on the Apache Flink Kubernetes Operator (Flink Operator), and offers the same set of features as the Flink Operator supports. By extending the Kubernetes API, the Flink Operator acts as a control plane to manage the deployment lifecycle of Flink applications using the operator pattern. The current release of CSA Operator also includes a Technical Preview of the SQL Stream Builder, which will become a standard component of CSA Operator in future versions.

The operator pattern is a specialized controller used to manage a custom resource. As a customized control loop, controllers watch the shared state of the cluster through an API server to make changes in order to reach the desired state of the deployment defined by the custom resources. Building on default Kubernetes components, custom resources enable customization of the Kubernetes installation specialized for the application. This enables the Flink deployment process to be automated to start clusters, deploy stateful jobs, and ensure stability.