What is Apache Kafka
A data streaming platform that helps systems share events in real time.
Definition
Apache Kafka is often used in data and AI infrastructure when there is a need to process a continuous stream of events: clicks, transactions, logs, messages, telemetry or user actions. For models, this is a source of fresh data, events for monitoring and signals for automation.
Example
The recommendation service receives product view events through Kafka and updates user attributes almost immediately.
Why it matters
The term is important not as an AI model itself, but as part of the infrastructure that feeds data to AI systems and helps build scalable products.
How it works
Kafka receives events from producers, stores them in topics, and serves them to consumers. Multiple services can read the same data stream independently of each other.
Where it is used
- streaming analytics
- user events
- monitoring and MLOps
Limitations
Kafka requires configuration, monitoring, and understanding of distributed systems. For small projects it may be overkill.