In general Apache Flume architecture is composed of the following components :
Flume Source : Flume Source is available on various networking platforms like Facebook or Instagram. It is a Data generator that collects data from the generator, and then the data is transferred to a Flume Channel in the form of a Flume.
Flume Channel : The data from the flume source is sent to an Intermediate Store which buffers the events till they get transferred into Sink. The Intermediate Store is called Flume Channel. Channel is an intermediate source. It is a bridge between Source and a Sink Flume channel. It supports both the Memory channel and File channel. The file channel is non-volatile which means once the data is entered into the channel, the data will never be lost unless you delete it. In contrast, in the Memory channel, events are stored in memory, so it’s volatile, meaning data may be lost, but Memory Channel is very fast in nature.
Flume sink : Data repositories like HDFS, have Flume Sink. Which takes Flume events from the Flume Channel and stores them into the Destination specified like HDFS. It is done in such a way where it should deliver the events to the Store or another agent. Various sinks like Hive Sink, Thrift Sink, etc are supported by the Flume.
Flume Agent : A Java process that works on Source, Channel, Sink combination is called Flume Agent. One or more than one agent is possible in Flume. Connected Flume agents which are distributed in nature can also be collectively called Flume.
Flume Event : An Event is the unit of data transported in Flume. The general representation of the Data Object in Flume is called Event. The event is made up of a payload of a byte array with optional headers.
