Whats Ahead for the Future of Data Streaming? – DevOps.com

Data is everywhere. Its being produced by almost everyone and everything around us. For businesses to be competitive, they need to build resilient, scalable systems that can efficiently tap into and react to this ever-increasing volume of data. Companies are meeting this need by moving to real-time data streaming to develop new solutions and improve their businesses and customer experience.

This category of data streaming has been growing. And, driven by the rise of real-time digital experiences like ride-sharing, fraud detection, inventory management and more, the growth has accelerated.

So whats next for data streaming?

The concept of data as a product will become more mainstream. Across many industries, data streaming is becoming central to how businesses operate and disseminate information within their companies. However, there is still a need for broader education about key data principles and best practices, like those outlined through data mesh.

Data as a product is foundational to rethinking how data produced in one part of a business can be reliably used in another. Data products with formalized ownership and responsibilities, combined with a platform for discoverability and accessibility, result in significantly fewer barriers and a much easier data access experience for all. Schemas, the Kafka API and maturing specification standards like ASyncAPI can be a part of this evolution.

As more folks embrace this mindset, I expect to see companies shift from using ad-hoc data pipelines to ones based on data products, driving a centralized system that can power both better analytical insights and operational execution.

With the rise of cloud-based offerings, I expect to see more companies offering more accessible, pay-as-you-go, self-service solutions. Weve already seen this shift over the past few years; cloud-based offerings are making it easier for companies to try out a data product based on their usage (or lack thereof). Given the current market conditions, these offerings will be more appealing to organizations that arent ready to sign a multi-year contract for a product offering or focus solely on a single technology.

Cloud is here to stay. Weve proven that it works, that its safe and secure, and for many folks, it just makes sense. This should come as no surprise to anyone, but expect the trend of cloud migrations to continue.

In the context of Apache Kafka, building out a Kafka-based data streaming solution used to mean hosting and managing your own Kafka cluster. If youve ever been in that position, you know that usually means more DevOps work and less focus on building applications to get the most out of your data. Not only do cloud-based Kafka offerings eliminate much of the DevOps headaches that come with a Kafka cluster, but they also make it much easier and faster to hit the ground running and begin streaming your data.

Im personally excited by what the cloud and SaaS can do to make Kafka and data streaming more accessible. In my visits to developers and companies around the globe, I see this enthusiasm shared by so many. Entire geographic regions and industries are taking the opportunity to move to the cloud and dive headfirst into data streaming.

As of Apache Kafka 3.3, the KRaft consensus protocol has replaced Zookeeper and is production-ready. Cluster metadata can now be maintained and managed from within the cluster, meaning theres one less thing to worry about when deploying Kafka instances.

While there are many options for cloud-based Kafka-as-a-Service, improvements such as KRaft in open source Kafka make self-hosting even easier. This, along with the work done to make it simpler to run managed Kafka services on local machines and test environments, means that Kafka no longer has to be synonymous with complexity. With the difficulty of managing and maintaining a Kafka instance no longer preventing folks from making use of data streaming, I predict that the adoption of Kafka will increase even more.

Data streaming will continue to mature as a transformational technology for companies of all sizes, serving as a critical infrastructure that most organizations will need to run their business.

If you havent yet explored what data streaming has to offer you, maybe this will be your year to check it out!

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Whats Ahead for the Future of Data Streaming? - DevOps.com