This blog series aims to provide insights into configuring Apache Kafka for a production-grade environment. The focus will be on exploring various configuration options and understanding how they interact and impact each other to achieve specific outcomes, often at the expense of other factors. We will develop a sample project, beginning with a POC to better define requirements and determine how to achieve them by fine-tuning Kafka. While the solution will be deployed locally using Docker Compose, minimal adjustments will be needed to adapt it to a lightweight K3s or AWS ECS deployment or even a more robust production setup.