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Unbounded stream

As explained in Kafka for Architects

An unbounded stream is a continuously arriving sequence of events with no defined end.

An unbounded stream is a continuously arriving sequence of events with no defined start or end. Its events can be processed as they arrive, making it suited to real-time processing. section 8.4.2

A Kafka topic can serve as an unbounded source for an Apache Flink job. The job reads events through a source connector, transforms them, and writes results through a sink connector. A bounded source, such as a file or batch database query, instead supplies a complete dataset for batch-style computation. section 8.4.2

How Kafka for Architects covers it

How deep it goes
Defines arrival and processing behavior, then contrasts bounded streams; does not detail stream-processing internals.
Examples
Uses a Kafka topic as an unbounded source and files or batch database queries as bounded sources.
What you can do after
Apply it via Apache Flink when choosing a continuously arriving source for a real-time job.
How it connects
Connects unbounded streams to bounded streams, batch processing, Kafka topics, and Flink connectors.
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Related concepts

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Kafka for Architects. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.