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## Benchmark Kafka on Azure Cobalt 100 Arm-based instances and x86_64 instances
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## Benchmark Kafka on Azure Cobalt 100 Arm-based instances
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Kafka’s official performance tools (**kafka-producer-perf-test.sh** and **kafka-consumer-perf-test.sh**) let you generate test workloads, measure message throughput, and record end-to-end latency.
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Apache Kafka includes official performance testing utilities that allow you to measure throughput, latency, and end-to-end efficiency of your messaging system. These tools`kafka-producer-perf-test.sh` and `kafka-consumer-perf-test.sh` are bundled with Kafka’s standard installation and are designed for realistic performance evaluation of producers and consumers.
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## Steps for Kafka Benchmarking
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Before starting the benchmark, ensure that the **Kafka broker** are already running in separate terminals.
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Now, open two new terminals—one for the **producer benchmark** and another for the **consumer benchmark**.
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Before running the benchmarks, make sure your Kafka broker is already active in a separate terminal (as configured in the previous section).
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Now open two new terminal sessions — one for running the producer benchmark and another for the consumer benchmark.
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### Terminal A - Producer Benchmark
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The producer benchmark measures how fast Kafka can send messages, reporting throughput and latency percentiles.
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The Producer Performance Test measures how quickly Kafka can publish messages to a topic and reports key performance metrics such as throughput, average latency, and percentile latencies.
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Run the following command to simulate message production on your Azure Cobalt 100 Arm64 VM:
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```console
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cd /opt/kafka
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```output
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1000000 records sent, 252589.0 records/sec (24.09 MB/sec), 850.85 ms avg latency, 1219.00 ms max latency, 851 ms 50th, 1184 ms 95th, 1210 ms 99th, 1218 ms 99.9th.
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```
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| Metric | Meaning |
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| ---------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| **Records/sec** | Number of messages successfully produced per second. Higher indicates better throughput. |
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| **MB/sec** | Total data throughput in megabytes per second. |
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| **Avg latency** | Average time (in milliseconds) for the producer to send a message and receive acknowledgment from the broker. |
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| **Max latency** | The longest single message send time recorded. |
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| **50th / 95th / 99th percentiles** | Distribution of message send times. For example, 95% of messages completed under 1,184 ms in the sample output. |
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### Terminal B - Consumer benchmark
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The consumer benchmark measures how fast Kafka can read messages from the topic, reporting throughput and total messages consumed.
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The Consumer Performance Test measures how efficiently Kafka can read and process messages from a topic. It reports metrics such as total messages consumed, data throughput, and fetch rates, helping validate overall consumer-side performance on your Azure Cobalt 100 (Arm64) VM.
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Run the following command in a new terminal:
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```console
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cd /opt/kafka
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bin/kafka-consumer-perf-test.sh \
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start.time, end.time, data.consumed.in.MB, MB.sec, data.consumed.in.nMsg, nMsg.sec, rebalance.time.ms, fetch.time.ms, fetch.MB.sec, fetch.nMsg.sec
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2025-09-03 06:07:13:616, 2025-09-03 06:07:17:545, 95.3674, 24.2727, 1000001, 254517.9435, 3354, 575, 165.8564, 1739132.1739
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```
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## Benchmark Results Table Explained:
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- **Messages Processed** – Total number of messages handled during the test.
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- **Records/sec** – Rate of messages sent or consumed per second.
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- **MB/sec** – Data throughput in megabytes per second.
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- **Avg Latency (ms)** – Average delay in sending messages (producer only).
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- **Max Latency (ms)** – Longest observed delay in sending messages (producer only).
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- **50th (ms)** – Median latency (half the messages were faster, half slower).
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- **95th (ms)** – Latency below which 95% of messages were delivered.
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- **99th (ms)** – Latency below which 99% of messages were delivered.
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- **99.9th (ms)** – Latency below which 99.9% of messages were delivered.
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Understanding the Metrics:
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| Metric | Description |
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| --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| **`data.consumed.in.MB`** | Total data consumed during the benchmark. |
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| **`MB.sec`** | Consumption throughput in megabytes per second. Higher values indicate better sustained read performance. |
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| **`data.consumed.in.nMsg`** | Total number of messages successfully consumed. |
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| **`nMsg.sec`** | Messages consumed per second (a key measure of consumer-side throughput). |
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| **`fetch.time.ms`** | Time spent retrieving messages from the broker. Lower values mean faster message delivery. |
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| **`fetch.nMsg.sec`** | Per-fetch message rate, useful for comparing network and I/O efficiency. |
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| **`rebalance.time.ms`** | Time spent coordinating consumer group assignments before actual consumption begins. |
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## Benchmark summary on Arm64:
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Here is a summary of benchmark results collected on an Arm64 **D4ps_v6 Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS virtual machine**.
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The following results summarize Kafka producer and consumer benchmark performance on an Azure Cobalt 100 (Arm64) virtual machine, specifically a D4ps_v6 instance running Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS.
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These results validate Kafka’s stability and throughput consistency on Arm-based infrastructure.
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### Consumer Performance Test
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| Metric | Value | Unit |
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|-----------------------------|-------------|---------------|
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| Fetch Throughput (Data) | 180.9629 | MB/sec |
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| Fetch Throughput (Messages)| 1,897,535.10| Messages/sec |
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### Producer Performance Test
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| Metric | Records Sent | Records/sec | Throughput | Average Latency | Maximum Latency | 50th Percentile Latency | 95th Percentile Latency | 99th Percentile Latency | 99.9th Percentile Latency |
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|--------|--------------|-------------|------------|-----------------|-----------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|---------------------------|
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| Value | 1,000,000 | 257,532.8 | 24.56 | 816.19 | 1237.00 | 799 | 1168 | 1220 | 1231 |
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| Unit | Records | Records/sec | MB/sec | ms | ms | ms | ms | ms | ms |
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## Benchmark summary on x86_64:
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Here is a summary of the benchmark results collected on x86_64 **D4s_v6 Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS virtual machine**.
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### Consumer Performance Test
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| Metric | Value | Unit |
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|--------------------|-------------|---------------|
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| Total Time Taken | 3.811 | Seconds |
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| Data Consumed | 95.3674 | MB |
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| Throughput (Data) | 25.0243 | MB/sec |
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| Messages Consumed | 1,000,001 | Messages |
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| Throughput (Messages) | 262,398.58 | Messages/sec |
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| Rebalance Time | 3271 | Milliseconds |
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| Fetch Time | 540 | Milliseconds |
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| Fetch Throughput (Data) | 176.6064 | MB/sec |
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| Fetch Throughput (Messages) | 1,851,853.70| Messages/sec |
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Interpretation:
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The consumer achieved over 258,000 messages per second, equivalent to ~24.6 MB/sec, with low fetch latency.
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A fetch throughput near 1.9 million messages/sec indicates efficient partition reads and network I/O handling on the Arm64 platform.
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Minimal rebalance and fetch times confirm Kafka’s responsiveness under sustained workloads.
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### Producer Performance Test
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| Metric | Records Sent | Records/sec | Throughput | Average Latency | Maximum Latency | 50th Percentile Latency | 95th Percentile Latency | 99th Percentile Latency | 99.9th Percentile Latency |
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|--------|--------------|-------------|------------|-----------------|-----------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|-------------------------|---------------------------|
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| Value | 1,000,000 | 242,013.6 | 23.08 | 840.69 | 1351.00 | 832 | 1283 | 1330 | 1350 |
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| Value | 1,000,000 | 257,532.8 | 24.56 | 816.19 | 1237.00 | 799 | 1168 | 1220 | 1231 |
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| Unit | Records | Records/sec | MB/sec | ms | ms | ms | ms | ms | ms |
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## Benchmark comparison insights
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When comparing the results on Arm64 vs x86_64 virtual machines:
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- The Kafka **consumer** achieved **25.02 MB/sec throughput**, processing ~**262K messages/sec** with fetch throughput exceeding **1.85M messages/sec**.
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- The Kafka **producer** sustained **23.08 MB/sec throughput**, with an average latency of ~**841 ms** and peak latency of ~**1351 ms**.
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- These results confirm stable Kafka performance on the **Azure Ubuntu Pro arm64 virtual machine**, validating its suitability for **baseline testing and benchmarking**.
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You have now benchmarked Kafka on an Azure Cobalt 100 Arm64 virtual machine and compared results with x86_64.
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Interpretation:
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The producer sustained a throughput of ~257,500 records/sec (~24.5 MB/sec) with an average latency of 816 ms.
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The 95th percentile latency (1168 ms) and 99th percentile (1220 ms) show predictable network and I/O performance.
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Kafka maintained consistent throughput, even under full-speed production, with no message loss or broker errors reported.
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### Benchmark Comparison Insights
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When analyzing performance on Azure Cobalt 100 Arm64 virtual machines:
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**Producer efficiency**: The producer reached ~23–25 MB/sec throughput with average latencies below 900 ms, demonstrating stable delivery rates for high-volume workloads.
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**Consumer scalability**: The consumer maintained ~262K messages/sec throughput with near-linear scaling of fetch performance — exceeding 1.85M messages/sec internally.
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**Performance stability**: Both producer and consumer benchmarks showed low jitter and consistent latency distribution across iterations, confirming Kafka’s predictable behavior on Arm-based VMs.
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afka on an Azure Cobalt 100 Arm64 virtual machine and compared results with x86_64.

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