Weather Events Producer

This Python script fetches real-time weather data for a specified city using the WeatherAPI and produces the data to a Kafka-compatible topic. It is ideal for local development scenarios such as real-time analytics, streaming data pipelines, or testing event-driven architectures.

Features

• Fetch real-time weather data from WeatherAPI.
• Produce weather data events to a Kafka topic.
• Configurable city name and polling interval.
• Lightweight, with support for local development using Redpanda.

Why is this useful?

1. Real-Time Analytics:

   • Use this script to simulate a source of real-time data for streaming pipelines.
   • Integrate with analytics tools like Spark, Flink, or ClickHouse to process weather events in real time.

2. Event-Driven Architectures

   • Test Kafka-based microservices by using weather data events as a source of truth.
   • Implement consumers that react to changes in weather conditions (e.g., trigger alerts for specific weather events).

3. Developer Testing

   • Easily spin up a Redpanda Kafka cluster for local testing.

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• Git CLI
• Redpanda CLI (rpk)
• WeatherAPI account (for API key).

Installation without Docker

This process is useful when you would like to make changes in the script with an IDE and test it with a Redpanda cluster running locally. It will also help to understand how the solution works step by step.

1. Get a WeatherAPI Key. Sign up to get your free API key.

2. Install Redpanda CLI

   On macOS, install Redpanda CLI via Homebrew:

   brew install redpanda-data/tap/redpanda

3. Start a Local Redpanda Cluster

   Start a single-node Redpanda cluster:

   rpk container start --nodes 1 --kafka-ports 9092 --console-port 8080

   Check the cluster status:

   rpk cluster info

   Create the Kafka topic weather-events:

   rpk topic create weather-events --partitions 1 --replicas 1

4. Set Up the Script

   Clone the repository and install dependencies:

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt

   Set the required environment variables:

   export KAFKA_BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS=localhost:9092
   export WEATHER_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>

   If you created a topic with a different name, you can set it here as well if needed:

    export KAFKA_TOPIC=other-weather-events

Usage

Run the script to produce weather data events for a specific city every N seconds:

python3 simple_weather_event_producer.py --city-name "Kitchener" --polling-period 3

This fetches weather data for the city of Kitchener every 3 seconds and produces the data to the Kafka topic weather-events.

Command-Line Options:

• --city-name: The name of the city for which to fetch weather data (required).
• --polling-period: The time interval (in seconds) between consecutive API calls (default: 3 seconds).

Consuming Messages

You can consume the messages from the weather-events topic using:

rpk topic consume weather-events

Or access the Redpanda Console at http://localhost:8080 to view the messages.

Installation with Docker Compose

Alternatively, you can use Docker Compose to run the script and Redpanda in containers.

First, set your API key in your host:

export WEATHER_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>

If you prefer not to export the key manually each time, use a .env file to define environment variables.

Create .env file

WEATHER_API_KEY=<your_api_key>

Then start the solution:

docker-compose up --build

Verify Redpanda Setup:

• Visit the Redpanda Console at http://localhost:8080.
• Check the weather-events topic for messages.

Or using a different console, use the Redpanda CLI to consume messages directly:

docker exec -it redpanda-0 rpk topic consume weather-events

To stop the Services:

Press Ctrl+C or run docker-compose down