Kafka Integration with Liferay (Complete Enterprise Guide)

Modern portals must communicate with multiple backend systems in real time.

Instead of synchronous APIs, enterprises now use event-driven architecture.

That’s where Apache Kafka integrates perfectly with Liferay.

This guide explains how to connect Liferay with Kafka for scalable messaging.

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📌 Why Integrate Kafka with Liferay?

Traditional portal integration:

User Action → REST Call → Wait Response → Slow UI

Event-Driven Integration:

User Action → Publish Event → Async Processing → Fast UI

Benefits:

• Loose coupling

• High scalability

• Retry capability

• Real-time updates

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🖼️ Architecture Overview

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🧠 Integration Use Cases

Common enterprise scenarios:

• User registration triggers CRM update

• Document upload triggers processing

• Workflow approval triggers billing

• Notification service events

• Audit logging

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🛠 Step 1: Add Kafka Dependency (OSGi Module)

Create Liferay module.

Add Gradle dependency:

implementation 'org.apache.kafka:kafka-clients:3.6.0'

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🛠 Step 2: Kafka Producer in Liferay

Example: publish user registration event.

public class KafkaProducerUtil {

    private static final String TOPIC = "user-events";

    public static void publish(String message) {

        Properties props = new Properties();
        props.put("bootstrap.servers", "localhost:9092");
        props.put("key.serializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer");
        props.put("value.serializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer");

        Producer<String, String> producer = new KafkaProducer<>(props);
        producer.send(new ProducerRecord<>(TOPIC, message));
        producer.close();
    }
}

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🛠 Step 3: Trigger Event from Liferay Model Listener

Example: After user creation.

@Component(
    immediate = true,
    service = ModelListener.class
)
public class UserCreateListener extends BaseModelListener<User> {

    @Override
    public void onAfterCreate(User user) {

        String payload = "{ \"userId\": " + user.getUserId() + " }";
        KafkaProducerUtil.publish(payload);
    }
}

Now every new user publishes event.

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🖼️ Event Flow

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🛠 Step 4: Kafka Consumer (Microservice)

Spring Boot consumer example:

@KafkaListener(topics = "user-events", groupId = "crm-service")
public void consume(String message) {

    System.out.println("Received: " + message);
}

Backend systems now process asynchronously.

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🔁 Retry & Fault Tolerance

Kafka automatically supports:

• Retry

• Offset tracking

• Replay messages

Portal never blocks.

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🔐 Security Considerations

Use in production:

• SASL authentication

• SSL encryption

• Topic authorization

Never expose broker publicly.

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🏆 Best Practices

✔ Send lightweight events
✔ Avoid large payloads
✔ Use JSON schema
✔ Separate topics per domain
✔ Handle idempotency in consumers

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⚠️ Common Mistakes

❌ Calling backend API directly from portal
❌ Large payload events
❌ No retry handling
❌ Blocking UI thread

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🎯 Real Enterprise Flow

User registers → Liferay publishes event
CRM consumes → creates customer
Email service consumes → sends welcome mail
Analytics consumes → logs activity

Fully decoupled.

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🎯 Conclusion

Kafka + Liferay enables:

• Real-time integration

• Scalable portals

• Reliable messaging

• Microservice architecture

It is the recommended approach for modern enterprise portals.

Recommended Reading

• Liferay Microservices Communication Guide
  https://shikhanirankari.blogspot.com/2026/02/liferay-microservices-communication.html

• Spring Boot + Camunda External Task Pattern
  https://shikhanirankari.blogspot.com/2026/02/spring-boot-camunda-external-task.html

• BPMN Event Subprocess Explained
  https://shikhanirankari.blogspot.com/2026/02/bpmn-event-subprocess-explained-with.html

💼 Professional Support Available

If you are facing issues in real projects related to enterprise backend development or workflow automation, I provide paid consulting, production debugging, project support, and focused trainings.

Technologies covered include Java, Spring Boot, PL/SQL, Azure, CMS and workflow automation (jBPM, Camunda BPM, RHPAM).

📧 Contact: ishikhanirankari@gmail.com | info@realtechnologiesindia.com

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