Lucia Cerchie explains the key metaphor in an event-driven system:
We can speak broadly, maybe even a little philosophically, about what events are. Events are “things that happen,” or sometimes, they are otherwise defined as representations of facts. All data is, in a way, a result of humans trying to grok events. At the same time, I honestly don’t find the definition helpful if we leave it at this level. Do we ever design apps around things that don’t happen? (Don’t think about that too hard.)
Let’s get concrete: Events that might affect real-time data pipelines and applications, including things like Pinterest saves, USPS address changes, ship coordinate updates, and credit card transactions.
Read on for more about events and how they drive the design of Kafka topics and the applications which use them.