Active-passive vs active-active in Kafka - Practice Questions

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Difference between active-passive and active-active Kafka clusters

Which statement best describes the difference between active-passive and active-active Kafka cluster setups?

A Active-passive clusters require manual failover; active-active clusters never require failover.

B Active-passive clusters share the same data center; active-active clusters are always in different data centers.

C Active-passive has one cluster handling all traffic while the other is standby; active-active has both clusters handling traffic simultaneously.

D Active-passive clusters use multiple brokers; active-active clusters use a single broker.

💡 Hint

Think about how traffic is handled in each setup.

In active-passive, one cluster is active and the other waits to take over if needed. In active-active, both clusters actively handle traffic at the same time.

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

Output of Kafka consumer group behavior in active-active setup

Given two Kafka clusters in an active-active setup, what will be the output of the following consumer group status command if both clusters consume from the same topic independently?

Kafka

kafka-consumer-groups --bootstrap-server cluster1:9092 --describe --group my-group
kafka-consumer-groups --bootstrap-server cluster2:9092 --describe --group my-group

A No output because consumer groups cannot exist in active-active setups.

B A single combined consumer group status merging offsets from both clusters.

C An error indicating consumer group conflicts between clusters.

D Two separate consumer group statuses showing independent offsets for each cluster.

💡 Hint

Consider how consumer groups are managed per cluster.

Each Kafka cluster manages consumer groups independently, so you get separate statuses for each cluster.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Why does failover not happen automatically in active-passive Kafka setup?

In an active-passive Kafka cluster setup, the passive cluster does not start handling traffic automatically after the active cluster fails. What is the most likely cause?

A The passive cluster has no brokers running.

B The passive cluster is not configured with automatic failover or monitoring tools.

C Kafka does not support failover in any cluster setup.

D The active cluster is still partially responding, so failover is blocked.

💡 Hint

Think about what triggers failover in active-passive setups.

Failover requires monitoring and automation to detect failure and switch traffic; without it, passive cluster stays idle.

📝 Syntax

advanced

Identify the error in Kafka MirrorMaker active-active configuration snippet

What is wrong with this MirrorMaker configuration snippet intended for active-active replication?

Kafka

clusters = clusterA, clusterB
clusterA.bootstrap.servers = kafkaA:9092
clusterB.bootstrap.servers = kafkaB:9092

# Replication flows
clusterA->clusterB.enabled = true
clusterB->clusterA.enabled = false

A The replication from clusterB to clusterA is disabled, so it's not truly active-active.

B The bootstrap servers are incorrectly specified with ports.

C The clusters variable should be a list, not a comma-separated string.

D MirrorMaker does not support active-active replication.

💡 Hint

Check the replication directions enabled.

For active-active, replication must be enabled both ways. Here, clusterB->clusterA is disabled, so it's not active-active.

🚀 Application

expert

Choosing cluster setup for global low-latency Kafka access

You need to design a Kafka deployment for a global application requiring low-latency writes and reads from multiple continents. Which setup is best?

A Active-active clusters in multiple regions with bi-directional replication.

B Single active cluster in one region with passive clusters in others for failover.

C Multiple independent clusters with no replication to reduce complexity.

D Active-passive clusters with manual failover to control traffic.

💡 Hint

Consider latency and availability for global users.

Active-active clusters allow users in different regions to read and write locally with replication keeping data in sync, reducing latency.