Kafka jappoġġja garanziji differenti tat-twassil — mill-inqas darba, mill-inqas darba, u eżattament darba — li jiddeterminaw jekk il-messaġġi jistgħu jintilfu jew idupplikaw. L-għarfien ta' dawn u kif jinkisebhom huwa importanti għall-bini ta' sistemi affidabbli.
It-tliet semantiċi tat-twassil
AT-MOST-ONCE → messages may be LOST but never duplicated:
→ commit offset BEFORE processing → if processing fails, the message is skipped (lost)
→ for: when occasional loss is acceptable and duplicates are not (rare)
AT-LEAST-ONCE → messages are never lost but may be DUPLICATED:
→ commit offset AFTER processing → if a crash occurs before commit, the message is
reprocessed (duplicate) → requires IDEMPOTENT processing
→ the common default; safe (no loss) but handle duplicates
EXACTLY-ONCE → each message is processed exactly once (no loss, no duplicates):
→ the strongest, but hardest; requires Kafka transactions + idempotent producers
