The Database is Only Half Done: ksqlDB and Streaming Applications

In a world increasingly defined in software, is the database–a tool primarily built to aid human-computer interaction–always the right tool to choose? In this talk, we’ll look at a new type of database, built not only for the tables and columns we’re familiar with, but also the continuous, never-ending “streams of events” that represent data as it moves. We’ll take a look at ksqlDB’s syntax and show how it can replace bespoke Kafka Consumers with short, declarative queries.

From there, we’ll look at what kinds of software architectures a streaming database supports. Hint: they look an awful lot like what the most ambitious Kafka deployments are doing with the systems they’re refactoring to microser ices. We’ll look at how Kafka and ksqlDB solve the attendant problems elegantly, and how the software architectures on which many teams are converging closely resembles the databases of old.

About Tim Berglund

Tim is a teacher, author, and technology leader with Confluent, where he serves as the Vice President of Developer Relations. He is a regular speaker at conferences and a presence on YouTube explaining complex technology topics in an accessible way. He tweets as @tlberglund, blogs every few years at http://timberglund.com. He has three grown children and two grandchildren, a fact about which he is rather excited.

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