Browsing by Author "Andström, Valtteri"

Message-oriented middleware (MOM) serves as the intermediary component between the nodes of a distributed system, facilitating their communication and data exchange. By decoupling the interconnected nodes of a system, MOM technologies enable scalable and fault-tolerant messaging, supporting real-time data streams, event-driven architectures and microservices communication. Given the increasing reliance on distributed computing and data-intensive applications, understanding the performance and operational characteristics of MOM technologies is paramount. This master's thesis investigates the comparative performance and operational aspects of two prominent MOM solutions, Apache Kafka and Apache Pulsar, through a systematic literature review (SLR). The key characteristics under inspection are throughput, latency, resource utilization, fault tolerance, security and operational complexity. This study offers a comprehensive analysis to aid informed decision-making in real-world deployment scenarios and augments the existing body of literature. The results of this SLR show that consensus on throughput and latency superiority between Kafka and Pulsar remains elusive. Pulsar demonstrates advantages in resource utilization and security, whereas Kafka stands out for its maturity and operational simplicity.