Shoe retail titan NewLimits relies on a jumble of homegrown ETL pipelines and batch-based data systems. As a result, sluggish and inefficient data transfers are frustrating internal teams and holding back the company’s development velocity and data quality.

NewLimits developer Ada and architect Jax are eager to put the days of daily batch jobs, frequent failures, and inconsistent data sources behind them. When their lead unexpectedly assigns them a new project focused on developing real-time data streaming capabilities, Ada and Jax must decide, will they listen to the cautionary advice of senior developer Pat or embrace the unknown with their intrepid guide Iris?

As Ada and Jax venture through Batchlands – a stagnant, inefficient world representative of NewLimits’ current state, they are guided by Iris, a master of data streaming. Together, they discover how Apache Kafka® and Confluent hold the keys for unlocking real-time capabilities for NewLimits. They must now embark on a race against time to build a proof-of-concept, before the Batch Gang tries to sabotage their plans.