Running a single Apache Kafka® cluster across multiple datacenters (DCs) is a common, yet somewhat taboo architecture. This architecture, referred to as a stretch cluster, provides several operational benefits and unlocks the door to many uses cases. Stretch clusters provide better durability guarantees and make disaster recovery much easier by avoiding the problem of offset translation and restarting clients. However, in order to operate a reliable stretch cluster, datacenters must be relatively close to each other and have a very stable, low latency, and high-bandwidth connection among the DCs.
This changes with the preview release of Confluent Platform 5.4, which includes multi-region replication built directly into Confluent Server. Now operators can choose to replicate data on a per-region basis, synchronously or asynchronously, per topic. This functionality allows operators to increase data durability and automate client failover in the event of a disaster.
And of course all of those rules about RPO, RTO, etc. apply to this.