Apache Kafka is an event streaming platform that was developed by LinkedIn and later made open-source under the Apache Software Foundation. Its primary function is to handle high-volume real-time data streams and provide a scalable and fault-tolerant architecture for creating data pipelines, streaming applications, and microservices.
Kafka employs a publish-subscribe messaging model, in which data is sorted into topics, and publishers send messages to those topics. Subscribers can then receive those messages in real time. The platform offers a scalable and fault-tolerant architecture by spreading data across multiple nodes and replicating data across multiple brokers. This guarantees that data is consistently available, even if a node fails.