Glossary

term: “API”, tooltip: “Automates tasks using REST APIs for Console and Gateway resources.”, definition: “Automates tasks using REST APIs for Console and Gateway resources. The Conduktor API allows you to programmatically manage and configure your data streaming infrastructure.”, slug: “api” term: “ACL”, tooltip: “Access Control List.”, definition: “Access Control List: permissions defining who can access which Kafka resources. ACLs control authorization for operations like reading from or writing to topics, managing consumer groups, and cluster administration.”, slug: “acl” term: “Apache Flink”, definition: “A distributed stream processing framework that enables stateful computations on real-time and batch data at scale.”, slug: “apache-flink” term: “Apache Kafka”, definition: “An open-source distributed event streaming platform used for real-time data pipelines and event-driven applications.”, slug: “apache-kafka” term: “Broker”, tooltip: “A Kafka server node that stores and serves data.”, definition: “A Kafka server node that stores and serves data. Brokers handle read and write requests from producers and consumers, and maintain data replication across the cluster.”, slug: “broker” term: “Component”, tooltip: “Components packaged as Docker images that power Conduktor products.”, definition: “Components are the underlying parts that power Conduktor products such as Exchange. These components are packaged as Docker images. Components are what you deploy in your infrastructure and connect to Kafka or other systems to get business value. There are three components: conduktor-console, conduktor-console-cortex and conduktor-gateway.”, slug: “component” term: “CLI”, tooltip: “Manages Console and Gateway resources via command line or integration into CI/CD pipelines.”, definition: “Command Line Interface. Conduktor CLI is a component that manages Console and Gateway resources via command line or integration into CI/CD pipelines. Two installation options are available: native binary or Docker. Find out more.”, slug: “cli” term: “Cluster”, tooltip: “A group of Kafka brokers working together to handle data streams.”, definition: “A group of Kafka brokers working together to handle data streams. There are also clusters of Gateways (or Kafka Connect workers, Flink clusters, etc).”, slug: “cluster” term: “Community”, tooltip: “The free and limited version of Conduktor.”, definition: “Conduktor Community is the free version. Get started now.”, slug: “community” term: “Console”, tooltip: “A user interface for managing and monitoring Kafka infrastructure, supporting Kubernetes deployment.”, definition: “Conduktor Console is a user interface for managing and monitoring Kafka infrastructure, supporting Kubernetes deployment. This is the Conduktor offering that you can see - the unified interface to develop, monitor and manage data streaming operations. Console is available as a Docker image conduktor-console. Find out more.”, slug: “console” term: “Consumer”, tooltip: “A client application that subscribes to and reads events from Kafka topics.”, definition: “A client application that subscribes to and reads events from Kafka topics. Consumers process messages and track their position using offsets.”, slug: “consumer” term: “Cortex”, tooltip: “A Conduktor component that provides monitoring functionality for Console.”, definition: “A component conduktor-console-cortex that’s deployed alongside Console to provide it with the monitoring metrics. Find out more”, slug: “cortex” term: “Chargeback”, tooltip: “Visualizes cost allocation and tracks resource usage across service accounts.”, definition: “Chargeback visualizes cost allocation and tracks resource usage across service accounts. It provides visibility into consumption patterns on key metrics. Find out more.”, slug: “chargeback” term: “CEL”, tooltip: “Common Expression Language.”, definition: “Common Expression Language: an expression language used for writing Rules and filtering data in Conduktor. CEL expressions capture business logic that validates data at the streaming layer before messages are processed.”, slug: “cel” term: “Crypto shredding”, tooltip: “A data deletion technique achieved by destroying encryption keys.”, definition: “A data deletion technique achieved by destroying encryption keys. Crypto shredding makes encrypted data permanently unreadable by deleting the keys used to encrypt it, providing a secure method for data disposal without physically deleting the data itself.”, slug: “crypto-shredding” term: “Data contracts”, tooltip: “Agreements that enforce schema integrity and quality to detect and block malformed events.”, definition: “Agreements that enforce schema integrity and quality to detect and block malformed events. Data contracts ensure that data producers and consumers adhere to agreed-upon formats and validation rules.”, slug: “data-contracts” term: “Data hub”, tooltip: “Conduktor’s data hub drives real-time decisions by fully controlling your operational data.”, definition: “Use Conduktor’s data hub to drive real-time decisions by fully controlling your operational data and how it flows through your organization. Book a demo.”, slug: “data-hub” term: “Data masking”, tooltip: “Obfuscates sensitive data for security and privacy.”, definition: “Obfuscates sensitive data for security and privacy. Data masking replaces sensitive information with fictitious but realistic data, allowing teams to use production-like data in non-production environments without exposing actual sensitive information.”, slug: “data-masking” term: “Data mesh”, tooltip: “A decentralized approach to data architecture.”, definition: “A decentralized approach to data architecture where domain teams own their data. Find out more.”, slug: “data-mesh” term: “Data sharing”, tooltip: “Securely shares specific Kafka topics with external partners selectively.”, definition: “Securely shares specific Kafka topics with external partners selectively. Data sharing enables controlled access to streaming data while maintaining security and governance standards.”, slug: “data-sharing” term: “Data streaming governance”, definition: “Centralized control over streaming data, ensuring security, compliance, and efficient operations.”, slug: “data-streaming-governance” term: “Desktop”, tooltip: “A legacy Conduktor product that will be sunsetted by 2026.”, definition: “A legacy Conduktor product (Desktop Application). Will be sunsetted by 2026. Find out more and get support with your migration”, slug: “desktop” term: “DLQ”, tooltip: “Dead Letter Queue.”, definition: “Dead Letter Queue: a Kafka topic where unprocessable messages are stored for debugging.”, slug: “dlq” term: “EDA”, tooltip: “Event-Driven Architecture.”, definition: “Event-Driven Architecture: a software design pattern where systems react to events in real-time.”, slug: “eda” term: “EDM”, tooltip: “Enterprise Data Management.”, definition: “Enterprise Data Management: the practice of centrally governing, securing and optimizing data across an organization. Conduktor’s focus and uniqueness is on EDM for data streaming, designed for managing real-time data streaming at scale, ensuring security, compliance and governance. Book a demo.”, slug: “edm” term: “Federated governance”, tooltip: “Applies consistent policies (encryption, masking, RBAC) uniformly across the entire streaming estate.”, definition: “Applies consistent policies (encryption, masking, RBAC) uniformly across the entire streaming estate. Federated governance ensures that security and compliance standards are enforced centrally while allowing distributed teams to operate autonomously.”, slug: “federated-governance” term: “Field-Level encryption”, tooltip: “Safeguards sensitive data from unauthorized access using field-level or full payload encryption.”, definition: “Safeguards sensitive data from unauthorized access using field-level or full payload encryption. Field-Level encryption allows you to encrypt specific fields within messages rather than entire payloads, providing granular data protection. Find out more.”, slug: “field-level-encryption” term: “Gateway”, tooltip: “A Kafka proxy that deploys extensible plugins for encryption, filtering, and data processing.”, definition: “Conduktor Gateway is a Kafka proxy that deploys extensible plugins for encryption, filtering, and data processing. It’s a vendor-agnostic proxy deployed between your client applications and existing Kafka clusters, providing functionality not available in Kafka natively. Available as a Docker image conduktor-gateway. Find out more.”, slug: “gateway” term: “Indexing”, tooltip: “A background process in Console that allows you to perform various actions on data.”, definition: “Indexing is a background process in Console that collects changes in an internal table, in turn allowing you to perform actions like sort, filter and much more, which you couldn’t do with any out-of-the-box Kafka implementations. Find out more.”, slug: “indexing” term: “IaC”, tooltip: “Manages Conduktor resources within existing Terraform workflows.”, definition: “Infrastructure as Code: manages Conduktor resources within existing Terraform workflows. Conduktor uses Alpha as the terraform provider, allowing you to define and version your data streaming infrastructure as code. Find out more.”, slug: “infrastructure-as-code” term: “Insights”, tooltip: “A hub observing streaming state, governance, and security with AI-guided workflows.”, definition: “A hub observing streaming state, governance, and security with AI-guided workflows. Insights page provides comprehensive visibility into your Kafka infrastructure, helping identify issues and optimization opportunities.”, slug: “insights” term: “Interceptor”, tooltip: “Conduktor Interceptors are Gateway plugins that transform and manipulate data.”, definition: “Conduktor Interceptors are configurable Gateway plugins that allow any part of Kafka protocol to be observed, manipulated and transformed. Find out more.”, slug: “interceptor” term: “Kafka Connect”, tooltip: “A tool for integrating Kafka with external data sources.”, definition: “Kafka Connect is a tool to stream data between Apache Kafka and other data systems in a reliable & scalable way. Conduktor provides a simple interface for managing all of your source and sink connectors in one place. Find out more.”, slug: “kafka-connect” term: “Kafkademy”, tooltip: “A free educational platform for learning, practicing, and mastering Apache Kafka.”, definition: “A free educational platform for learning, practicing, and mastering Apache Kafka. Kafkademy provides hands-on tutorials and courses for all skill levels. Check it out.”, slug: “kafkademy” term: “KRaft mode”, tooltip: “A modern Kafka architecture that operates without ZooKeeper.”, definition: “A modern Kafka architecture that operates without ZooKeeper. KRaft (Kafka Raft) mode uses Kafka’s own consensus protocol for metadata management, simplifying deployment and improving scalability.”, slug: “kraft-mode” term: “ksqlDB”, definition: “A streaming SQL-like engine for real-time analytics on Kafka.”, slug: “ksqlDB” term: “Logical topic”, tooltip: “Conduktor logical topics are abstractions of real Kafka topics that provide additional functionality that’s not available by default.”, definition: “Conduktor logical topics are abstractions of real Kafka topics that provide additional functionality that’s not available by default. We offer three types of logical topics: alias, concentrated and SQL. Find out more.”, slug: “logical-topic” term: “Message retention”, definition: “How long Kafka stores messages before they are deleted.”, slug: “message-retention” term: “Partner Zones”, tooltip: “A specific mechanism to share Kafka topics with external partners selectively and securely.”, definition: “A specific mechanism to share Kafka topics with external partners selectively and securely. Partner Zones provide controlled, secure access to streaming data without exposing your entire infrastructure. Find out more.”, slug: “partner-zones” term: “Partition”, tooltip: “A subset of a topic that helps distribute the load across multiple brokers.”, definition: “A subset of a topic that helps distribute the load across multiple brokers.”, slug: “partition” term: “Platform”, tooltip: “Conduktor Platform integrates with your existing infrastructure, providing centralized visibility and control over real-time data. ”, definition: “Conduktor Platform integrates with your existing infrastructure to provide centralized visibility and control over real-time data. It’s a fully self-hosted solution that depends on Docker to run. It combines all the Conduktor components, such as conduktor-console and conduktor-gateway.”, slug: “platform” term: “Policy”, definition: “A Policy in Conduktor is a configurable control that automates governance and compliance across your data ecosystem. There are different types of policies, such as TopicPolicy within our Self-service framework and DataQualityPolicy.”, slug: “policy” term: “Producer”, tooltip: “A client application that publishes and writes events to Kafka topics.”, definition: “A client application that publishes and writes events to Kafka topics. Producers send messages to Kafka brokers for storage and distribution to consumers.”, slug: “producer” term: “RBAC”, definition: “Role-Based Access Control: the method of restricting access to users based on their role.”, slug: “rbac” term: “Real-time AI”, tooltip: “Turns streaming data into a trusted, contextualized flow to fuel GenAI and Agentic AI initiatives.”, definition: “Turns streaming data into a trusted, contextualized flow to fuel GenAI and Agentic AI initiatives. Real-time AI capabilities ensure that AI systems have access to high-quality, governed streaming data.”, slug: “real-time-ai” term: “Replication”, tooltip: “The process of copying data across brokers to ensure availability and fault tolerance.”, definition: “The process of copying data across brokers to ensure availability and fault tolerance. Replication protects against data loss by maintaining multiple copies of each partition across different brokers in the cluster.”, slug: “replication” term: “Rule”, tooltip: “A Rule captures business logic that’s applied to data. Rules have to be attached to Policies to take effect.”, definition: “A Rule is a CEL expression that captures business logic for your data. You then attach the Rule(s) to one or more Policies which will validate data at the streaming layer before messages are processed. Find out more.”, slug: “rule” term: “Scale”, tooltip: “Conduktor product for organizations scaling data streaming use cases and users, empowering teams to manage resources autonomously.”, definition: “Conduktor product for organizations scaling data streaming use cases and users, empowering teams to manage resources autonomously. Find out more.”, slug: “scale” term: “Schema registry”, definition: “A central repository for managing Kafka message schemas, ensuring compatibility.”, slug: “schema-registry” term: “Self-service”, tooltip: “An operational model allowing application teams to operate autonomously under central platform rules.”, definition: “An operational model allowing application teams to operate autonomously under central platform rules. Self-service is a GitOps framework within Scale that provides developer autonomy, facilitating collaboration between the central platform and application teams. Find out more.”, slug: “self-service” term: “Service account”, tooltip: “A service account is a non-human identity used by Kafka clients to authenticate and perform actions on resources.”, definition: “A service account is a non-human identity used by Kafka clients to authenticate and perform actions on resources through Gateway. You can define two types of service accounts: local or external. Find out more.”, slug: “service-account” term: “SIEM”, definition: “Security Information and Event Management.”, slug: “siem” term: “SNI”, definition: “Server Name Indication.”, slug: “sni” term: “Streaming observability”, definition: “Visibility into the health and performance of data streams, enabling proactive troubleshooting.”, slug: “streaming-observability” term: “Terraform”, tooltip: “To terraform means to prepare/transform data, so it can be used as code.”, definition: “To terraform means to prepare/transform data, so it can be used as code. See Infrastructure as Code for how Conduktor uses Terraform.”, slug: “terraform” term: “Topic”, tooltip: “The fundamental unit of data storage in Kafka, comprised of partitions and offsets.”, definition: “The fundamental unit of data storage in Kafka, comprised of partitions and offsets. A topic is a category to which records (messages) are sent and from which they are consumed.”, slug: “topic” term: “Traffic Control Policies”, tooltip: “Validation rules that impose limits on configuration changes for topics, brokers and clients.”, definition: “Validation rules that impose limits on configuration changes for topics, brokers and clients. Conduktor provides a number of Traffic Control Policies that can be applied to your Kafka data to protect or enforce best practice.”, slug: “traffic-control-policies” term: “Unified backbone”, tooltip: “The central layer for all data movement, ensuring events carry context, ownership, and protection.”, definition: “The central layer for all data movement, ensuring events carry context, ownership, and protection. Unified backbone provides a consistent foundation for data streaming across your organization.”, slug: “unified-backbone” term: “Virtual Cluster”, tooltip: “A logical representation of a Kafka cluster in Gateway.”, definition: “A logical representation of a Kafka cluster in Gateway. Virtual Clusters allow you to create isolated views of your Kafka infrastructure, enabling multi-tenancy and providing different access patterns and policies for different teams or applications.”, slug: “virtual-cluster” term: “Zero-trust security”, tooltip: “A security model enforced at every access point to eliminate risk windows.”, definition: “A security model enforced at every access point to eliminate risk windows. Zero-trust security ensures that every request is authenticated, authorized, and validated, regardless of where it originates.”, slug: “zero-trust-security”