Topic 17.1
Beginner Questions (1–15)
In one line
Fifteen fundamentals: what Kafka is and why, Kafka vs RabbitMQ and Redis, topics, partitions, offsets, brokers, consumer groups, why partitions exist, replication, ISR, producers, consumers and retention.
Think of it like this
The first questions in any driving test are simple, but shaky answers make the examiner doubt everything after. Precise fundamentals earn trust for the hard questions.
Key ideas
- 01
Answer shape: one-sentence definition, the mechanism, an example, and the caveat an interviewer will probe (for example, "ordering is per partition, not per topic").
- 02
These map to Phases 0–4.
Explain it without notes
1. What is Kafka?
2. Why Kafka?
3. Kafka vs RabbitMQ?
4. Kafka vs Redis?
5. What is a topic?
6. What is a partition?
7. What is an offset?
8. What is a broker?
9. What is a consumer group?
10. Why are partitions needed?
11. What is replication?
12. What is the ISR?
13. What is a producer?
14. What is a consumer?
15. What is retention?
Done when you can
I can answer all 15 beginner questions with mechanism and caveat.