What is the main role and application of Kafka in data processing systems?

Apache Kafka is a distributed data streaming platform designed for processing large volumes of messages in real-time.

The main role of Kafka is to provide reliable, scalable, and high-performance message transfer between different system components.

Applications of Kafka:

• Collection and aggregation of logs and metrics
• Ensuring message exchange between microservices
• Stream processing of data and events
• Integration of systems with different data processing speeds

Kafka operates as a distributed message log, where data is written to topics and can be read by multiple consumers independently.