preface
Our journey with Apache Kafka began years ago—Anatoly as a trainer and practitioner, Alex as a Kafka consultant—when the German publisher Hanser approached us about writing a book on the subject. “Sure, why not?” we thought. “How hard could it be?” Little did we know that it would take almost two years of intensive research into architectural patterns, technical details, and crafting a compelling narrative before we’d complete the first edition—in German.
The readers’ responses exceeded our expectations. As first-time authors, we were overwhelmed by the fantastic feedback and the meaningful connections we made with our readers. However, these questions kept recurring: “Why did you write this book in German?” “When will there be an English edition?” Moreover, we felt the book wasn’t quite complete. We hadn’t had enough time to thoroughly address a crucial aspect: how to successfully integrate Kafka into an organization. Questions about the bigger picture of Kafka in organizations, architectural adaptations, and implementation strategies remained unexplored.