DZone
Big Data Zone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
  • Refcardz
  • Trend Reports
  • Webinars
  • Zones
  • |
    • Agile
    • AI
    • Big Data
    • Cloud
    • Database
    • DevOps
    • Integration
    • IoT
    • Java
    • Microservices
    • Open Source
    • Performance
    • Security
    • Web Dev
DZone > Big Data Zone > Kafka Internals: FAQs

Kafka Internals: FAQs

A quick cheat sheet for the basic questions new comers to Apache Kafka often face,.

Arun Lingala user avatar by
Arun Lingala
·
May. 01, 19 · Big Data Zone · Analysis
Like (5)
Save
Tweet
8.75K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Is there chance that a consumer can read from more than one partition in a topic?

Yes, of course. If the number of consumers is less than the number of partitions in the topic.

What is the optimal number of consumers in a group for a topic?

As many as the number of partitions.

Is there a chance for a consumer to be idle?

Yes, if the number of live consumers in a group is larger than the number of partitions. These idle consumers will be leveraged when a consumer crashes.

Does the Kafka broker retain messages until they are consumed by all subscribers?

No, it is the consumer's responsibility to consume messages when they are available in a topic.

It is analogous to subscribing and watching content from satellite channel. The subscriber should tune to the channel while the content is being played to watch.


If you want to take a closer look at Apache Kafka, check out my previous two articles: 

  • Kafka Internals: Topics and Partitions
  • Kafka Internals: Consumers
kafka

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Checklist for API Verification
  • 12 Kick-Ass Software Prototyping and Mockup Tools
  • DZone's Article Submission Guidelines
  • How to Properly Format SQL Code

Comments

Big Data Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • MVB Program
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends:

DZone.com is powered by 

AnswerHub logo