How Does Apache Kafka Work? A Simple Explanation

Apache Kafka is a powerful distributed event streaming platform used by businesses worldwide for real-time data processing. It efficiently handles high volumes of data and ensures seamless communication between different systems. But how does Kafka work? Let’s break it down in simple terms. Understanding Apache Kafka Kafka is a publish-subscribe messaging system designed for high-throughput and fault-tolerant data streaming. It acts as a middleman between data producers and consumers . Key Components of Kafka 1. Producers: These are the sources of data that send messages to Kafka topics. 2. Topics : Kafka organizes data into topics, which act as channels where messages are stored. 3. Brokers : Kafka brokers store and manage the data. A Kafka cluster consists of multiple brokers to ensure reliability. 4. Consumers : Applications that subscribe to topics and consume messages in real-time. 5. Zookeeper : Manages metadata, leader e...