So, you’ve heard of this Kafka thing that’s popping up all over the shop. From green-sprout startups to greedy multi-nationals, in all sorts of weird and wonderful contexts. It appears that someone has figured out a Swiss Army knife piece of über-tech that works for microservices, event-streaming, CQRS, and just about anything else that makes the headlines.
As someone who’s been working with Apache Kafka since 2015, helping several clients build complex event-driven and microservices-style applications, I’ve heard my fair share of questions. First, it was I who was doing most of the asking. Then I found myself on the receiving end. At the time of writing, I’m trending among the top-ten writers on Quora — a feat I owe mostly to the mistakes I’ve made along the way, which have made me a little more aware. With the shameless chest-beating out of the way, I thought I’d put together an FAQ-style post that breaks Kafka down, focusing on the aspects that matter.