Textbook in PDF format This book teaches you how to incorporate Kafka into enterprise applications. This book stays above the code-level details, focusing instead on how to use Kafka to achieve your technical and business goals. Architects across industries are turning to Kafka for its unparalleled speed, reliability, and scalability. In this book, author Katya Gorshkova lays out how Kafka fits into complex system designs, expertly illustrating how you can use Kafka for effective logging, telemetry, microservices communication, and more in event driven enterprise applications. In Kafka for Architects you will find: Kafka's role in enterprise software The event-driven architecture pattern Data streaming solutions Event driven architecture in messaging systems Explaining Kafka clusters Data streaming solutions Designing data contracts Kafka in real world use cases About the Technology Kafka is a powerful distributed event streaming platform perfect for the real-time data pipelines you find in all modern software systems. As a software architect, it's mission critical to understand how Kafka impacts every aspect of system design, deployment, management, and maintenance. This unique book provides the architectural principles you need to integrate Kafka effectively into enterprise applications at any scale. About the Book Kafka for Architects focuses on architectural principles rather than code, showing exactly how to align Kafka with your organization's technical and business goals. You'll explore proven patterns and anti-patterns, integration strategies, and the broader Kafka ecosystem—from event pipelines to microservices communication. What's Inside Event-driven architecture patterns: CQRS, event sourcing, and microservices integration Efficient messaging systems: message production, consumption, batching, partitioning, and throughput Kafka clusters: cluster architecture, topics, partitions, replication, and configuration Designing data contracts: event schema design, schema evolution, governance, and use of Schema Registry About the Readers For working and aspiring enterprise and solutions architects. Kafka for Architects is for software architects, technical leads, and developers who need to understand Kafka at a system level—how it operates and how to fit it into broader architectures. You do not need to know any specific programming language or technology stack to benefit from this book, but a basic grasp of distributed systems concepts, general architecture principles, and some experience delivering enterprise projects will be helpful. My goal is to equip you with the insight to evaluate Kafka’s role in your architecture, make informed trade-offs, and design solutions that last, regardless of the tools or languages you use. About the Author Katya Gorshkova is a consulting engineer and architect in the FinTech sector with extensive experience designing applications for real-time data processing. Contents: Part 1 Getting to know Kafka as an architect Kafka cluster data architecture Kafka clients and message production Creating consumer applications Part 2 Kafka in real-world use cases Defining data contracts Kafka interaction patterns Designing streaming applications Part 3 Managing Kafka within the enterprise Organizing a Kafka project Operating Kafka What's next for Kafka