Kafka Architecture: Low Level - 2025 Edition
🚀 What’s New in This 2025 Update
Major Updates and Changes
- KRaft-Only Architecture - ZooKeeper completely eliminated
- Raft Consensus Replication - Native leadership election
- Java 17 Requirement - Modern JVM optimizations
- Protocol Cleanup - Removed pre-0.10.x formats
- Dynamic KRaft Quorums - Add/remove controllers without downtime
- Improved Atomic Writes - Enhanced exactly-once semantics
Deprecated Features
- ❌ ZooKeeper coordination - Fully removed
- ❌ Java 8 support - Minimum Java 11/17
- ❌ Legacy wire protocols - Pre-0.10.x formats gone
- ❌ Old replication mechanisms - Replaced by Raft
Ready to understand how Kafka achieves its legendary performance? Let’s dive deep into the engineering decisions that make Kafka the backbone of modern data infrastructure.