A Free Apache Kafka Cloud Service — and how to quickly get started with it

Last week I presented on Apache Kafka — twice. Once to a group of over 100 students, once to 30+ colleagues. In both instances, I invited attendees to partake in a workshop with hands-on labs to get acquainted with Apache Kafka. I had prepared a Docker Compose based Kafka platform (aided by the work by Guido Schmutz) that participants could install locally on their laptop. However, an alternative approach that did not involve any local installation and was actually quicker and just as free was through a free Apache Kafka cloud…