Enterprise Event Streaming Platform: What it Is and Exploring Axual’s Kafka software Solutions for Modern Data Integration

Many architects and software engineers have adopted event streaming as a solution for implementing asynchronous, real-time processing of events. Event Streaming Platforms were introduced to make defining, implementing, and running event streaming applications easier. In this blog, we will explain what makes an event streaming platform an enterprise event streaming platform. To do that, we’ll also explain the concepts of event streaming in general.

Axual offers two solutions for enterprise event streaming, Axual Platform and Governance.

• Axual Platform provides a self-service governance component for managing topics, schemas, and applications. This is on top of a full streaming stack, including Kafka clusters, Connect, Schema Registry, multi-region data replication, and more.
• Axual Governance provides the self-service governance component as an addition to an existing Kafka deployment. This allows you to add the enterprise event streaming platform features to existing Kafka deployments.

Both solutions provide organizations with extensive governance features for their streaming platform. One of the most important features is how Axual Solutions handles ownership.

But what is an enterprise event streaming platform? What does it offer that other event streaming platforms don’t offer?

What is Event Streaming?

Let’s start at the beginning and explain event streams.

Event streams are sequences of events created or published by systems to notify other systems that a change occurred. The events are persisted and immutable, allowing consumers to consume them in real-time or at a later time.

Contrary to typical message queues, events are not removed after being consumed. This allows consumers to replay events without the need to produce them again.

Consumers usually process the events in real-time. They are often used to feed real-time dashboards, analytics, or other systems that need to process data in real-time.

The publication and subscription model allows a clean decoupling between event producers and consumers. This makes it possible to easily add or replace consumers with minimum impact.

Examples of streaming events are website clicks, sensor measurements, user registrations, and financial trading transactions.

What is an Event Streaming Platform?

Now that we have a working definition of event streaming we can start on the definition of Event Streaming Platform.

An event streaming platform is software that enables the collection, storage, processing, and analysis of large volumes of real-time events. An event streaming platform consists of a distributed storage system that can handle large amounts of data and a set of processing tools and APIs that enable applications to consume and process events and define data models for them.

A common setup for an event streaming platform involves multiple nodes working together to handle event ingestion and processing, using techniques such as partitioning and replication to ensure high scalability, fault tolerance, and availability. A registry to facilitate the use of data models or schema is also considered a standard component of an event streaming platform.

One of the most popular event streaming platform deployments consists of Apache Kafka combined with a Schema Registry like Apicurio Registry, Apache Kafka® Connect, and REST interfaces like Strimzi Kafka Bridge.
There are multiple frameworks and tools available to implement streaming applications, like Apache Kafka Streams, Apache Flink®, and Faust for streaming applications built in Python.

What is an Enterprise Event Streaming Platform?

Well, it’s basically an Apache Kafka installation running on an aircraft carrier or starship from the United Federation of Planets. Oh wait, that’s the wrong Enterprise.

Seriously, an enterprise event streaming platform is a specific type of event streaming platform designed for use in large, complex organizations, or organizations relying heavily on event streaming solutions.
They provide additional functionalities like:

• Enterprise event streaming platforms often incorporate advanced security and compliance features, including advanced access controls and auditing, to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements effectively.
• Governance and management tools: Enterprise event streaming platforms typically provide tools for managing and governing the event streaming environment, such as policy management, version control, and monitoring, to ensure that the system is operating correctly and according to organizational standards.
• Integration with other enterprise systems: Enterprise event streaming platforms may include connectors and APIs for integrating with other enterprise systems, such as CRM, ERP, and BI systems, to enable real-time data sharing and processing.
• High scalability and performance: Enterprise event streaming platforms are designed to handle very large volumes of data and high throughput, often using specialized hardware and software optimizations to achieve high scalability and performance.

The difference between enterprise messaging and event streaming

The key difference between enterprise messaging and event streaming lies in their fundamental approaches to data delivery and processing. Enterprise messaging systems typically focus on reliable and ordered message delivery between applications, often using point-to-point or publish-subscribe patterns. In contrast, event streaming emphasizes the continuous flow of events or data records across systems. By that it enables real-time processing, analytics, and event-driven architectures. Event Streaming Platforms like Axual facilitate the seamless integration and processing of data streams. Offering enterprises a scalable and agile solution for modern data-driven applications.

How can an Event Streaming Platform help organizations at large scale

Event Streaming Platforms offer significant advantages to enterprises by reform how they handle data and process events in real time. These platforms facilitate the seamless capture and processing of massive volumes of data from diverse sources across distributed environments. By enabling organizations to ingest and analyze data streams in real time, Event Streaming Platforms enhance operational agility and responsiveness. This capability is crucial for industries such as finance, e-commerce, and telecommunications. Where milliseconds can make a significant difference in decision-making and customer service.

Actionable insights from streaming data instantaneously

They empower organizations to derive actionable insights from streaming data instantaneously. By leveraging complex event processing and real-time analytics, enterprises can detect patterns, trends, and anomalies as they happen. This proactive approach not only improves decision-making but also supports predictive analytics and proactive customer engagement strategies. For example, in retail, real-time insights from customer interactions and transactions can enable personalized marketing campaigns and inventory management optimizations. Driving revenue growth and customer satisfaction.

These Kafka software platforms enhance the scalability and reliability of data processing across dispersed systems. Leveraging distributed architectures and robust data replication ensures seamless data availability and consistency. This remains true even during network failures or hardware malfunctions. Scalability is essential for rapidly growing enterprises or those in dynamic markets. It allows them to handle increasing data volumes and transaction rates without compromising performance or reliability.

Event Streaming Platforms streamline data processing and analytics. They empower enterprises to innovate and adapt swiftly to market changes. By harnessing real-time data processing, organizations stay ahead of the competition. They drive operational efficiencies and deliver exceptional customer experiences in today’s fast-paced digital economy.

Three Key Benefits

The three key benefits of adopting an Enterprise Event Streaming Platform include:

Scalability

To handle growing volumes of data and increasing demands without sacrificing performance.

Reliability

To provide scalable solutions to handle growing volumes of data and increasing demands without devining performance.

Real-time insights with Kafka software

To handle large volumes of data across distributed systems, ensuring scalability to meet growing business needs.

They also provide robust data replication and fault tolerance mechanisms, ensuring reliable data delivery and processing.

This is how Axual can help

Axual offers comprehensive solutions tailored to boost the potential of Enterprise Event Streaming Platforms. We will provide you an unified environment. So you can manage event streams, topics, and schemas, coupled with advanced features like Kafka clusters, Schema Registry, and more. Axual Governance enhances existing Kafka deployments by adding self-service governance capabilities, simplifying management, and ensuring compliance across distributed environments.

These functionalities are crucial for large organizations to manage and process vast amounts of real-time data. They ensure security, compliance, and governance. Advanced tools help manage and integrate with other enterprise systems. Enterprise event streaming platforms can significantly benefit your organization. Gain valuable insights from event data, and improve operational efficiency to make more informed business decisions. Of course you can ask yourself if you need to build or buy a Apache Kafka platform. Maybe this blog can help you.

Start your own Kafka Cluster

If you’re considering upgrading your current Kafka-based event streaming platform to an enterprise level, Axual Governance is the solution. Getting started is easy. Simply visit the launch blog or start a free 30-day trial with your own Kafka cluster.

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