The heartbeating topic needs to be created on the Kafka server, if used.

cd <KAFKA HOME>

o Checking the topics on the server

bin/kafka-topics.sh --list --zookeeper localhost:2181

o Creating the heartbeating topic on the server

bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --zookeeper localhost:2181 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic heartbeating

o Confirming the topic was created

bin/kafka-topics.sh --list --zookeeper localhost:2181

# EOF
