Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform designed for high-performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, and data integration. It is widely used by organizations for building real-time data processing applications. Kafka is known for its ability to handle large volumes of data efficiently and is characterized by its scalability, durability, and fault tolerance ²⁵.

Kafka operates on a publish-subscribe model, where data is organized into categories called topics. Producers are processes that publish messages to these topics, while consumers subscribe to the topics to process the messages. Kafka runs as a cluster of one or more servers, referred to as brokers, which manage the storage and retrieval of messages ³⁴.

Additionally, Apache Kafka relies on Apache ZooKeeper, a centralized service that maintains configuration data and provides synchronization within distributed systems. ZooKeeper tracks the status of Kafka cluster nodes and manages topics and partitions, ensuring smooth operation ³. Overall, Kafka is a powerful tool for real-time data processing and is widely adopted across various industries.