From our 6+ years of Apache Kafka consulting support we found that there are common questions that new clients have about the technology and Dattell’s services.

Below is a list of a few of the most common questions inquiring new clients have when they first reach out.

Kafka Support and Managed Services FAQ

Part A:  Technical questions

We are encountering issues as we scale. Can you help?

We routinely scale and optimize Kafka for companies receiving large amounts of data, along with data bursts. We also setup auto-scaling events for automated responses to increases in traffic.

I’m missing data. Can you help us troubleshoot where the data loss is happening?

Yes, we can help you with all stages of your data pipeline including app/producer generation of data, transformation, and loading.

Kafka is rejecting messages after an upgrade. Can you help us? 

Yes, we’ve resolved upgrade issues for many clients, some of which had creative pipelines and schemas.

Do you support Zookeeper?

Yes, we support Zookeeper.

Can you assist us with geo-replication?

Yes, we can implement geo-replication using MirrorMaker 2 (MM2).

Can you help us monitor Kafka?

Yes, we pride ourselves in building dynamic Kafka monitoring with automated alerting.  With managed Kafka as a service, Dattell’s Kafka experts personally monitor your implementations 24/7 to keep them running smoothly.

Can you help us prepare for an upgrade?

Yes, we can work with your team to ensure a smooth and successful upgrade.

I want to use Kafka as a database. Can you help us with that? 

We do not recommend using Kafka as a database. We can direct you to and support you with better technology to address your problem.

Kafka isn’t working on our cloud platform but works locally. What’s wrong?  

We can help, typically this is an issue with advertised listeners.

Can you train our staff?

Yes, we will train your staff on best practices for using and maintaining Kafka with a focus on the intricacies of your specific implementation.

Can you help us design a Kafka implementation from scratch?

Yes, we will work with you to understand your business and technical requirements to design a Kafka implementation that supports your unique use case, while making the most efficient use of your hardware.

Can you assist with Kafka on AWS? Azure? GCP? On-premise?

Yes, we support Kafka in your environment, whether in the cloud or on-premise.

Can you assist with Kafka on Kubernetes?

Yes, our team members have extensive experience with implementing, optimizing, and supporting Kafka on K8s. Learn more about what to expect when deploying Kafka within Kubernetes in this post.

Part B:  How engagements work

If I hire Dattell will I get a dedicated solution architect or someone different depending on the day or month?

We always provide you with a dedicated Apache Kafka engineer to become an extended member of your team and provide personalized Kafka assistance from start to finish. You will meet your solution architect before the engagement starts to ensure a good fit.  For larger projects that require more than one full-time Kafka expert more would be assigned as needed.

How will we communicate and work with Dattell?

Your assigned solution architect will work with you through your team’s preferred messaging system, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, video calls, email, text, and/or phone calls.  Your assigned engineer can VPN in to your system, you can provide a company laptop, or we can strategize another way to work together if neither of those work for your use case.

What are your response times?

We strive to respond to all client inquiries in under 10 minutes. We guarantee incident response times within 30-minutes for Priority 1 issues for our fully managed Kafka as a Service clients.

Are there caps on monthly incidents?

No, we do not have a cap on incidents for Kafka support or any of our other services.

Part C:  Additional Resources

If you are new to Apache Kafka, then we recommend this background article on the foundations of Kafka, how Kafka uses consumer groups for event scaling.

For a sampling of support solutions that we’ve provided for our clients, then check out this post that outlines several Kafka Case Studies.

If you are using Kubernetes,  then check out our post on what to expect when running Kafka on Kubernetes.

Lastly, you can visit our main blog page for more Kafka resources or visit our Kafka support or Managed Kafka as a Service pages for pricing and service details.