title: Integration of Kafka in Web Application
body: <p>I have a java based web application which is using 2 backend database servers of Microsoft SQL (1 server is live database as it is transactional and the other one is reporting database). Lag between transactional and reporting databases is of around 30 minutes and incremental data is loaded using a SQL job which runs every 30 minutes and takes around 20-25 minutes in execution. This job is executing an SSIS package and using this package, data from reporting database is further processed and is stored in HDFS and HBase which is eventually used for analytics.</p>
  
  <p>Now, I want to reduce this lag and to do this, I am thinking of implementing a messaging framework. After doing some research, I learned that Kafka could solve my purpose since Kafka can also work as an ETL tool apart from being a messaging framework. </p>
  
  <p>How should I proceed? should I create topics similar to the table structures in SQL server and perform operations on that? Should I redirect my application to write any change happening in Kafka first and then in Transactional database? Please advise on usage of Kafka considering the mentioned use case.</p>