Red Hat Summit Red Hat SummitSupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact

Chapter 1. Key features

Streams for Apache Kafka simplifies the process of running Apache Kafka within an OpenShift cluster.

This guide serves as an introduction to Streams for Apache Kafka, outlining key Kafka concepts that are central to operating Streams for Apache Kafka. It briefly explains Kafka’s components, their purposes, and configuration points, including security and monitoring options. Streams for Apache Kafka provides the necessary files to deploy and manage a Kafka cluster, along with example configuration files for monitoring your deployment.

1.1. Kafka capabilities
Copy link

Kafka’s data stream-processing capabilities and component architecture offer:

  • High-throughput, low-latency data sharing for microservices and other applications
  • Guaranteed message ordering
  • Message rewind/replay from data storage to reconstruct application state
  • Message compaction to remove outdated records in a key-value log
  • Horizontal scalability within a cluster
  • Data replication to enhance fault tolerance
  • High-volume data retention for immediate access

1.2. Kafka use cases
Copy link

Kafka’s capabilities make it ideal for:

  • Event-driven architectures
  • Event sourcing to log application state changes
  • Message brokering
  • Website activity tracking
  • Operational monitoring through metrics
  • Log collection and aggregation
  • Commit logs for distributed systems
  • Stream processing for real-time data responses

1.3. How Streams for Apache Kafka supports Kafka
Copy link

Streams for Apache Kafka provides container images and operators for running Kafka on OpenShift. These operators are designed with specialized operational knowledge to efficiently manage Kafka on OpenShift.

Streams for Apache Kafka operators simplify:

  • Deploying and running Kafka clusters
  • Deploying and managing Kafka components
  • Configuring Kafka access
  • Securing Kafka access
  • Upgrading Kafka
  • Managing brokers
  • Creating and managing topics
  • Creating and managing users

For detailed information and instructions on using operators to perform these operations, see the guide for Deploying and Managing Streams for Apache Kafka.

Back to top
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2025 Red Hat