IN PERSON! Apache Kafka® Meetup Pune - Aug 2026

Hello everyone! Join us for an IN PERSON Apache Kafka® meetup on August 8th from 11:00 am, hosted by Data-Axle!

📍 Venue:
Data-Axle, ICC Tech Park, Tower A – 8th Floor, Senapati Bapat Rd, Laxmi Society, Model Colony, Shivajinagar, Pune – 411016

Landmark: Opp. JW Marriott.

Maps Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/HcRGNLDwviNRZ4ss9

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Agenda:

• 11:00- 11:10: Welcome & Introduction
• 11:10- 11:50: Siddhartha Patki, Solutions Engineer, Confluent
• 11:50- 12:30: Pratik Parikh, Lead DevOps Engineer, Simbian
• 12:30 - 12:45: Break
• 12:45 - 13:25: Vikas Thakur, Digital Solution Specialist, Infosys
• 13:25- 14:30: Lunch

If you would like to speak at or host a meetup please let us know! community@confluent.io (http://confluent.io/)

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💡 Speaker:
Siddhartha Patki, Solutions Engineer, Confluent

Talk:
Kafka 101 and Importance of Schema Registry

Abstract:
Apache Kafka has become a go-to platform for real-time data pipelines and event-driven applications, but for many people, the ecosystem can still feel a little abstract at first.

In this session, we’ll break down the core concepts in a practical way, including topics, partitions, producers, consumers, consumer groups, offsets, and where Kafka fits in modern streaming architectures.
From there, we’ll move into an equally important part of the story: data contracts.
As more teams and applications start publishing and consuming events, unmanaged schemas can easily lead to breaking changes, brittle integrations, and inconsistent data. That’s where Schema Registry comes in. We’ll look at how it helps teams standardize event formats, enforce compatibility, evolve schemas safely over time, and build Kafka-based systems that are much easier to trust and scale.
By the end of the session, attendees will have a clearer understanding of not just how Kafka moves data, but why Schema Registry plays such a key role in building reliable, maintainable, and production-ready streaming systems.

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💡 Speaker:
Pratik Parikh, Lead DevOps Engineer, Simbian

Talk:
Strimzin' Ain't Easy: Best way to run Kafka on Kubernetes

Abstract:
Running Apache Kafka in production is hard. Running it on Kubernetes? Even harder, until Strimzi came along. In this session, we strip away the black-box mystique and show you how Strimzi's Kubernetes operator manages Kafka clusters so you don't have to babysit ZooKeeper (or ZooKeeper at all, now that KRaft is here). We'll walk through real manifests, watch a cluster come to life, and talk about the gotchas nobody puts in the blog posts. Whether you're Kubernetes-curious or already have clusters in prod, you'll leave with working YAML and fewer nightmares. We'll have a cool working demo and send messages over Kafka and coffee

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💡 Speaker:
Vikas Thakur, Digital Solution Specialist, Infosys

Talk:
Beyond Deployment: Building and Operating a Kubernetes-Native Kafka Platform with Strimzi

Abstract:
Deploying Apache Kafka on Kubernetes is easy. Operating it as a secure, scalable platform is the hard part. This session presents a production-grade event streaming platform built with Strimzi, Apache Kafka 4.x (KRaft), Apache Flink, Apicurio Registry, GitOps, and cloud-native observability. Most Kafka-on-Kubernetes talks focus on deployment. This talk focuses on what happens next: security, governance, upgrades, scaling, observability, disaster recovery, and day-2 operations. Drawing from a real enterprise architecture initiative, we'll explore how platform teams make critical decisions around KRaft topology, RBAC and ACLs, schema governance, GitOps workflows, external connectivity, and operational ownership. We'll also share the ADRs, risk assessments, and validation approaches used to evaluate production readiness. Attendees will leave with a practical reference architecture, key lessons learned, and a framework for deciding whether self-managed Kafka on Kubernetes is the right platform strategy for their organization.

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If you would like to speak or host our next event please let us know! community@confluent.io (http://confluent.io/)