IN PERSON: Apache Kafka® x Apache Iceberg

Join us for an Apache Kafka® x Apache Iceberg meetup on Wednesday Oct 22nd from 5:30pm in G'Dansk hosted by Hapag Lloyd!

📍Venue:
Grunwaldzka 413, Gdansk (NEON building, 7th floor)

🗓 Agenda:

• 5:30pm: Welcome/Doors Open
• 5:30pm - 6:00pm: Food, Drinks, Networking
• 6:00pm - 6:45pm: Will Martin, PhD / EMEA Evangelist, Dremio
• 6:45pm - 7:30pm: Łukasz Kędroń, Lead Software Engineer, Kainos
• 7:30pm - 8:00pm: Additional Q&A & Networking

💡 Speaker One:
Will Martin, PhD / EMEA Evangelist, Dremio

Title of Talk:
From Stream to Table: Building Kafka-to-Iceberg Pipelines

Abstract:
While Kafka excels at streaming data, the real challenge lies in making that data analytically useful without sacrificing consistency or performance. This talk explores why Apache Iceberg has emerged as the ideal streaming destination, offering ACID transactions, schema evolution, and time travel capabilities that traditional data lakes can't match. Learn about some foundational tools that enable streaming pipelines and why they all converge on this next-generation table format built for flexibility and scalability.

Bio:
Will Martin is an Evangelist at Dremio with experience as a data engineer, academic, technology consultant, and software developer. His career includes roles at CERN, BMT, Deloitte, and Tamr. He has spent 15+ years collaborating with companies and organisations across EMEA and APAC, working to understand their unique problems and to deliver targeted, technical solutions. Starting with a background of statistical analysis in particle physics, his professional journey has spanned multiple industries, including banking, shipping logistics, entertainment media, healthcare, defence, and customer 360.

💡 Speaker Two:
Łukasz Kędroń, Lead Software Engineer, Kainos

Title of Talk:
Using Kafka GlobalKTable as a Configuration Cache

Abstract:
GlobalKTable is a special type of Kafka KTable that provides each consumer with a complete, locally stored copy of the data. In this session, we’ll explore how GlobalKTable can be effectively used as a configuration cache within a real-world screening system.

We’ll begin by examining the architecture of GlobalKTable and how it differs from standard KTables. Then, we’ll dive into the design of a configuration caching solution built on top of it, highlighting key implementation details and trade-offs.

The talk will include a live demo of a sample application, showcasing how to integrate GlobalKTable into an application. We’ll also take a closer look at the underlying technologies, including RocksDB, and discuss its configuration options to optimize performance and reliability.

Bio:
Łukasz Kędroń is a Lead Data Engineer at Kainos with over a decade of experience in software engineering. His career spans multiple domains, including financial systems and regulatory solutions such as food and animal checks related to Brexit. Recently, Łukasz transitioned into the data engineering space, where he focuses on building scalable, real-time data processing systems. He is passionate about Kafka, stream processing, and designing resilient data architectures.

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DISCLAIMER
NOTE: We are unable to cater for any attendees under the age of 18.
If you wish to speak at and/or host a future meetup, please email community@confluent.io