Create a stream using the APIs

Use the following steps to create your Kinesis data stream.

Build the Kinesis Data Streams client

Before you can work with Kinesis data streams, you must build a client object. The following Java code instantiates a client builder and uses it to set the Region, credentials, and the client configuration. It then builds a client object.

AmazonKinesisClientBuilder clientBuilder = AmazonKinesisClientBuilder.standard();
        
clientBuilder.setRegion(regionName);
clientBuilder.setCredentials(credentialsProvider);
clientBuilder.setClientConfiguration(config);
        
AmazonKinesis client = clientBuilder.build();

For more information, see Kinesis Data Streams Regions and Endpoints in the AWS General Reference.

Create the stream

Now that you have created your Kinesis Data Streams client, you can create a stream using the console or programmatically. To create a stream programmatically, instantiate a CreateStreamRequest object and specify a name for the stream. If you want to use provisioned mode, specify the number of shards for the stream to use.

The stream name identifies the stream. The name is scoped to the AWS account used by the application. It is also scoped by Region. That is, two streams in two different AWS accounts can have the same name, and two streams in the same AWS account but in two different Regions can have the same name, but not two streams on the same account and in the same Region.

The throughput of the stream is a function of the number of shards. For greater provisioned throughput, you require more shards. More shards also increase the cost that AWS charges for the stream. For more information about calculating an appropriate number of shards for your application, see Choose the data stream capacity mode.

After you have configured the createStreamRequest object, create a stream by calling the createStream method on the client. After calling createStream, wait for the stream to reach the ACTIVE state before performing any operations on the stream. To check the state of the stream, call the describeStream method. However, describeStream throws an exception if the stream does not exist. Therefore, enclose the describeStream call in a try/catch block.

client.createStream( createStreamRequest );
DescribeStreamRequest describeStreamRequest = new DescribeStreamRequest();
describeStreamRequest.setStreamName( myStreamName );

long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
long endTime = startTime + ( 10 * 60 * 1000 );
while ( System.currentTimeMillis() < endTime ) {
  try {
    Thread.sleep(20 * 1000);
  } 
  catch ( Exception e ) {}
  
  try {
    DescribeStreamResult describeStreamResponse = client.describeStream( describeStreamRequest );
    String streamStatus = describeStreamResponse.getStreamDescription().getStreamStatus();
    if ( streamStatus.equals( "ACTIVE" ) ) {
      break;
    }
    //
    // sleep for one second
    //
    try {
      Thread.sleep( 1000 );
    }
    catch ( Exception e ) {}
  }
  catch ( ResourceNotFoundException e ) {}
}
if ( System.currentTimeMillis() >= endTime ) {
  throw new RuntimeException( "Stream " + myStreamName + " never went active" );
}