Apache Kafka has gained traction as one of the most widely adopted technologies for building streaming applications - but introducing it (and scaling it) into your business can be a struggle. The problem isn’t with Kafka itself so much as the different components you need to learn and different tools required to operate it. For those motivated enough, you can invest money, effort and long Friday nights into learning, fixing and streamlining Kafka - and you’ll get there.

While there are many challenges young companies might struggle with, they certainly escaped one that is a blessing and a curse at the same time – the legacy IT systems. Data is indeed one of the companies’ most valued assets, as knowledge (read, ‘data’) empowers better, more informed business decisions. Moreover, chances are your organization already has most of the knowledge it needs. The only caveat, though, is that it might be inaccessible and therefore, pretty useless.

This interview was conducted by Cindy Maike, VP Industry Solutions The shift towards Industry 4.0 is improving manufacturing efficiency and the factory of the future will increasingly be driven by technology like the Internet of Things (IoT), Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cloud Computing.