Request-Response with REST/HTTP vs. Data Streaming with Apache Kafka – Friends, Enemies, Frenemies?
Request-response communication with REST / HTTP is simple, well understood, and supported by most technologies, products, and SaaS cloud services. Contrarily, data streaming with Apache Kafka is a fundamental change to process data continuously. HTTP and Kafka complement each other in various ways. This post explores the architectures and use cases to leverage request-response together with data streaming in the control plane for management or in the data plane for producing and consuming events.