Kafka Compute Is Cheap. Network Is Not

1. 1Run Kafka cluster diagnostics to identify topics with high fan-out
2. 2Configure metrics collection for bytes_in and bytes_out per topic
3. 3Estimate fan-out using producer throughput and replication outbound metrics
4. 4Optimize topic configuration to reduce cross-AZ network transfer
5. 5Monitor and analyze AWS CUR and GCP billing reports to track data transfer costs

DevOps and cloud engineering teams can benefit from understanding these hidden costs and optimizing their Kafka deployments to reduce expenses, while also improving overall system performance and efficiency

💡 Cross-AZ network transfer can be a major cost driver in Kafka deployments, and estimating fan-out is key to identifying and optimizing these costs

💡 Kafka network costs can exceed compute costs by 5-10x! Learn how to identify and optimize hidden costs