Chapter 2. Kafka quickly

 

This chapter covers

  • Examining the Kafka architecture
  • Sending messages with producers
  • Reading messages with consumers
  • Installing and running Kafka

Although this is a book about Kafka Streams, it’s impossible to explore Kafka Streams without discussing Kafka. After all, Kafka Streams is a library that runs on Kafka.

Kafka Streams is designed very well, so it’s possible to get up and running with little or no Kafka experience, but your progress and ability to fine-tune Kafka will be limited. Having a good fundamental knowledge of Kafka is essential to get the most out of Kafka Streams.

Note

This chapter is for developers who are interested in getting started with Kafka Streams but have little or no experience with Kafka itself. If you have a good working knowledge of Kafka, feel free to skip this chapter and proceed directly to chapter 3.

Kafka is too large a topic to cover in its entirety in one chapter. I’ll cover enough to give you a good understanding how Kafka works and a few of the core configuration settings you’ll need to know. For in-depth coverage of Kafka, take a look at Kafka in Action by Dylan Scott (Manning, 2018).

2.1. The data problem

2.2. Using Kafka to handle data

2.3. Kafka architecture

2.4. Sending messages with producers

2.5. Reading messages with consumers

2.6. Installing and running Kafka

Summary

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