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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: Clusters for Apache Kafka® - Concepts |
| 3 | +description: Understand the key concepts for Clusters for Apache Kafka®. |
| 4 | +tags: billing account pricing payment |
| 5 | +dates: |
| 6 | + posted: 2025-08-20 |
| 7 | + validation: 2025-08-20 |
| 8 | +noindex: true |
| 9 | +--- |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +<Message type="note"> |
| 12 | +Clusters for Apache Kafka® is currently in [Private Beta](https://www.scaleway.com/en/betas/) and available to selected testers only. |
| 13 | +</Message> |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +## Cluster |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +A cluster is a deployment of Apache Kafka®. It consists of one or more nodes (called **brokers**) that work together to store, manage and distribute event streams. [Data replication](#data-replication) across the cluster ensures high availability and robustness. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +## Clusters for Apache Kafka® |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Clusters for Apache Kafka® is Scaleway's product to provide a secure, fully-managed infrastructure for your Apache Kafka® deployments. With our clusters, you can create data pipelines and event-driven architectures that run natively on Apache Kafka®, without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +## Credentials |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +Credentials consist of a username and password that allow you to connect to your cluster. These are defined during cluster creation. During Private Beta, a limit of one user (ie one set of credentials) per cluster is applied. |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +## Data replication |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +Data replication is the mechanism that ensures event data is copied across multiple brokers in a cluster, for fault tolerance and high availability. If a node fails, data replication means Apache Kafka® can keep serving data without downtime or data loss. |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +## Endpoint |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +During Private Beta, access to your Cluster for Apache Kafka® is via private endpoints only. When creating your cluster, you must attach it to a [Private Network](/vpc/concepts/#private-networks), and all nodes in the cluster receive a private IPv4 endpoint on this network. Endpoints are in a format similar to `bf610fb0-f7eb-4ec3-a893...634aea.Kafka.fr-par.scw.cloud`. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +## Event streaming |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +Clusters for Apache Kafka® is specifically designed for implementing event streaming at scale. Event streaming is the process of capturing, storing and processing a continuous flow of events in real time. Each event represents something that happened,e.g.`User added item to cart`, `User clicked 'Pay now'`, `Payment was rejected by bank`. Events are stored in topics, e.g. `Inventory`, `Payment`, `Orders`. Typically, programs and microservices subscribe to these topics to consume their events and take action in relation to them, e.g. `Generate invoice`, `Check for fraud`, `Program delivery`. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +## Node |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +A Cluster for Apache Kafka® consists of one or more nodes, also called **brokers**. Nodes work together to store, manage and distribute event streams. When creating a cluster, you can choose between **dedicated** nodes or **shared** nodes, based on your workload requirements, budget and use case: |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +- **Dedicated node**: Runs only your cluster, with no other customers sharing the broker's resources. |
| 44 | +- **Shared node**: Runs your cluster along with other customers', on the same broker. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +## Storage |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +A cluster's storage is used to persist events, so they can be reliably consumed by services and applications. During Private Beta, each Cluster for Cluster for Apache Kafka® has a fixed amount of 100 GB of storage per node. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +## TLS certificate |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +A TLS certificate (aka SSL certificate) is a digital credential that encrypts data in transit and verifies the identity of a server or client. Scaleway generates a TLS certificate for each Cluster for Apache Kafka®, and all clients connecting to the cluster must install this certificate in order to be authenticated. This ensures secure and encrypted communication between nodes (brokers) and clients. |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +## Users |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +See [credentials](#credentials). |
| 57 | + |
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