What is fault tolerance in Kafka?

What is fault tolerance in Kafka?

Fault tolerance in Kafka refers to its ability to continue operating correctly even in the event of failures. It achieves this through data replication and partitioning.

How does Kafka ensure data replication?

Kafka ensures data replication by maintaining multiple copies of data across different brokers. Each partition of a topic can have one leader and multiple followers, which replicate the data.

What happens if a broker fails?

If a broker fails, Kafka automatically promotes one of the follower replicas to be the new leader, ensuring that data remains available and consistent.

Can you explain the role of Zookeeper in this process?

Zookeeper helps manage the Kafka brokers, keeping track of the leader and follower replicas, and coordinating the overall cluster state.

Are there any limitations to Kafka's fault tolerance?

Yes, while Kafka is robust, limitations include potential data loss if a broker fails before data is replicated, and the complexity of managing large clusters.