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Integration
System Management
Wire Tap
Tap into message flow silently — copy messages for inspection without disrupting the main stream.
Intent & Description
Real-world Use Case
Compliance audit — all financial transaction messages are tapped. Each transaction copy is sent to an immutable audit log channel consumed by a compliance store. Main processing flow is completely unaffected. Compliance team can query the audit log without touching the live system.
Source
📌 TL;DR
Wire Tap = silent copy of every message to a side channel. Main flow untouched, monitoring sees everything. Essential for audit logging and non-invasive debugging. Watch out for PII in the tap.
Advantages
- Completely non-invasive — main flow is never affected
- No changes to producer or consumer needed
- Enables audit logging, monitoring, and debugging as infrastructure concerns
- Can be used for testing — tap production traffic to feed a test environment
Disadvantages
- Doubles message volume at the tap point — monitoring channel must handle the load
- Wire Tap failure should not affect the main flow — needs careful error isolation
- Sensitive data in messages appears in the monitoring channel — access control critical
- Always-on taps add processing overhead to every message