Apache Flume

Apache Flume is a distributed, reliable, and available service designed for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large amounts of streaming log data and events from various sources to a centralized data store, typically the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). It operates as an…

Key facts

First appeared
2010
Category
technology
Problem solved
Apache Flume was created to address the significant challenge of reliably and scalably collecting and moving vast quantities of machine-generated data, such as log files and event streams, from numerous disparate sources to central big data repositories like HDFS. Prior to Flume, this task was often handled by brittle, custom-written scripts that lacked fault tolerance, scalability, and robust error handling, leading to data loss and operational nightmares.
Platforms
Unix-like OS (macOS), Linux, Windows (JVM-compatible operating systems)

Related technologies

Notable users

  • Any organization needing to ingest high volumes of log/event data into HDFS
  • Large enterprises with legacy Hadoop infrastructure (e.g., in telecommunications, finance, web services)
  • Hortonworks (historically)
  • Cloudera (historically and in its ecosystem deployments)