Real-Time Streaming Architectures Flashcards
7 cards from real Data Engineering practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Real-Time Streaming Architectures flashcards as text
In Apache Kafka, what guarantees message ordering?
Answer: Ordering within a single partition
Kafka only guarantees order within a partition, not across an entire topic.
What is the primary purpose of a watermark in stream processing?
Answer: To track progress of event time and handle late data
Watermarks signal how far event time has advanced so windows can close and handle lateness.
Which delivery semantic ensures a message is processed once and only once, even after failures?
Answer: Exactly-once
Exactly-once semantics guarantee each record affects state precisely one time despite failures.
A tumbling window in stream processing is characterized by:
Answer: Fixed-size, non-overlapping intervals
Tumbling windows partition time into fixed, contiguous, non-overlapping buckets.
What does backpressure refer to in a streaming pipeline?
Answer: A downstream consumer signaling it cannot keep up with input rate
Backpressure is the mechanism by which slow consumers throttle faster producers.
In Kafka, what role does the consumer group play?
Answer: It distributes partitions among members for parallel consumption
Partitions are divided among members of a consumer group so each is read by one member.
Which architecture uses both a batch layer and a speed layer to serve queries?
Answer: Lambda architecture
Lambda architecture combines a batch layer for accuracy with a speed layer for low latency.