Part 2 Solving problems with Kafka
Now that you understand how Kafka works, we’ll turn to how it can be applied to real-world challenges. This part of the book is about bridging architecture with practice—seeing where Kafka fits, where it doesn’t, and how to design responsibly around it.
In chapter 5 we’ll explore concrete use cases and also highlight when Kafka is not the right tool, comparing it with alternative systems. Chapter 6 moves into the design of data contracts, examining event definitions, governance, and the role of schema registries. Chapter 7 focuses on architectural interaction patterns, from microservices and data mesh to request-response and transactional outbox designs. Finally, chapter 8 introduces frameworks for real-time processing, showing how they can help build streaming applications.