Queues for Kafka ready for prime time
Summary
The article introduces Queues for Kafka, a feature added in Kafka 4.2.0 that enables queue-like semantics via share groups while keeping data in Kafka topics. It explains how share groups differ from traditional consumer groups, how message state and processing leases work, and the trade-offs around ordering, backlogs, and fault handling. It also discusses consolidation of workloads onto Kafka, potential dead-letter queues, and how this fits into broader data-in-motion architectures for enterprises.