A Glossary for Modern Data and AI Teams

A security feature used to define and enforce granular permissions to resources.

A REST API used to manage and monitor Redpanda Self-Managed clusters. It uses the default port 9644.

The address a Redpanda broker broadcasts to producers, consumers, and other brokers.

The process of verifying the identity of a principal, user, or service account.

The process of specifying access rights to resources.

One or more data centers served by high-bandwidth links with low latency, typically within a close distance of one another.

An access token used for authentication and authorization in web applications and APIs.

Features in beta are available for testing and feedback. They are not supported by Redpanda and should not be used in production environments.

An instance of Redpanda that stores and manages event streams. Multiple brokers join together to form a Redpanda cluster.

Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) is a fully-managed Redpanda Cloud deployment where clusters run in your private cloud, so all data is contained in your own environment. Redpanda handles provisioning, operations, and maintenance.

A Bring Your Own Virtual Network (BYOVNet) cluster allows you to deploy the Redpanda data plane into your existing Azure VNet to fully manage the networking lifecycle. Compared to standard BYOC, BYOVNet provides more security, but the configuration is more complex.

A Bring Your Own Virtual Private Cloud (BYOVPC) cluster allows you to deploy the Redpanda data plane into your existing VPC on AWS or GCP to fully manage the networking lifecycle. Compared to standard BYOC, BYOVPC provides more security, but the configuration is more complex.

A Kubernetes controller that simplifies the process of obtaining, renewing, and using certificates.

A producer application that writes events to Redpanda, or a consumer application that reads events from Redpanda.

One or more brokers that work together to manage real-time data streaming, processing, and storage.

Feature that retains the latest value for each key within a partition while discarding older values.

Enables Redpanda to integrate with external systems, such as databases.

A client application that subscribes to Redpanda topics to asynchronously read events.

A set of consumers that cooperate to read data for better scalability.

The position of a consumer in a specific topic partition, to track which records they have read.

A broker that manages operational metadata for a Redpanda cluster and ensures replicas are distributed among brokers.

Snapshot of the current cluster metadata state saved to disk, so broker startup is fast.

This part of Redpanda Cloud enforces rules in the data plane, including cluster management, operations, and maintenance.

This part of Redpanda Cloud contains Redpanda clusters and other components, such as Redpanda Console, Redpanda Operator, and rpk. It is managed by an agent that receives cluster specifications from the control plane.

Containing all your data in your environment. With BYOC, Redpanda handles provisioning, monitoring, and upgrades, but you manage your streaming data without Redpanda's control plane ever seeing it.

A continuous flow of events in real time that are produced and consumed by client applications. Also known as event stream.

Framework to manipulate or enrich data written to Redpanda topics using WebAssembly (Wasm).

A fully-managed Redpanda Cloud deployment option where you host your data in Redpanda's VPC, and Redpanda handles provisioning, operations, and maintenance. Dedicated clusters are single-tenant deployments that support private networking.

A record of something changing state at a specific time.

Redpanda HTTP Proxy (pandaproxy) allows access to your data through a REST API. Uses default port 8082.

Producers and consumers interact with Redpanda using the Kafka API. It uses the default port 9092.

A broker that is a follower in a Raft group but is not part of quorum.

Features in limited availability (LA) are production-ready and are covered by Redpanda Support for early adopters.

Configuration on a broker that defines how it should accept client or inter-broker connections.

A state where a Redpanda broker temporarily doesn't take any partition leaderships.

A function that an AI assistant can call to perform a specific task, such as fetching data from an API, querying a database, or processing streaming data.

One or more records representing individual events being transmitted.

A machine, which could be a server, a virtual machine (instance), or a Docker container.

A unique integer assigned to each record to show its location in the partition.

An acknowledgement that the event has been read.

Original name for the subsystem of Redpanda that allows access to your data through a REST API.

A subset of events in a topic, like a log file. It is an ordered, immutable sequence of records.

Every Redpanda partition forms a Raft group with a single elected leader. This leader handles all writes.

A single configuration file running in Redpanda Connect with an input connector, an output connector, and optional processors in between.

An entity (such as a user account or a service account) that accesses resources.

A client application that writes events to Redpanda.

A failure zone that has one or more Redpanda brokers assigned to it.

Feature that lets you distribute replicas of the same partition across different racks.

The consensus algorithm Redpanda uses to coordinate writing data to log files and replicating that data across brokers.

Role-based access control lets you assign users access to specific resources.

Process of moving partition replicas and transferring partition leadership for improved performance.

A self-contained data entity with a defined structure, representing a single event.

A fully-managed data streaming service deployed with Redpanda Console. It includes automated upgrades and patching, backup and recovery, data and partition balancing, and built-in connectors.

Redpanda software that is available under the Redpanda Business Source License (BSL). These core features are free and source-available.

A framework for building data streaming applications using declarative YAML configurations.

A process that exposes Redpanda Connect components to MCP clients.

The web-based UI for managing and monitoring Redpanda clusters and streaming workloads.

Redpanda software that is available under the Redpanda Community License (RCL). Includes enterprise features like Tiered Storage.

Generates and applies all the manifest files you need for deploying Redpanda in Kubernetes.

Extends Kubernetes with custom resource definitions (CRDs), which allow Redpanda clusters to be treated as native Kubernetes resources.

An MCP server hosted in your Redpanda Cloud cluster. It exposes custom tools that AI assistants can call to access your data and workflows.

A read-only topic that mirrors a topic on a different cluster, using data from Tiered Storage.

Copies of partitions that are distributed across different brokers.

The number of partition copies in a cluster.

A container for Redpanda Cloud resources, including clusters and networks.

The mechanism for determining how long Redpanda stores data on local disk or in object storage before purging it.

The process of upgrading each broker in a Redpanda cluster, one at a time.

Redpanda's command-line interface tool for managing Redpanda clusters.

An external mechanism to describe the structure of data and its encoding.

Redpanda Schema Registry is the interface for storing and managing event schemas. Uses default port 8081.

An open-source thread-per-core C++ framework, which binds all work to physical cores. Redpanda is built on Seastar.

The initial set of brokers that a Redpanda broker contacts to join the cluster.

Discrete part of a partition, used to break down a continuous stream into manageable chunks.

Redpanda Self-Managed refers to the product offering that includes both the Enterprise Edition and the Community Edition.

The process of converting a record into a format that can be stored.

Serverless is the fastest and easiest way to start data streaming. You host your data in Redpanda's VPC, and Redpanda handles automatic scaling, provisioning, operations, and maintenance.

An identity independent of the user who created it that can be used to authenticate and perform operations.

A CPU core.

Exports data from a Redpanda cluster into a target system.

Imports data from a source system into a Redpanda cluster.

A logical grouping or category for schemas.

Programming model that allows Redpanda to pin each of its application threads to a CPU core.

Feature that lets you offload log segments to object storage in near real-time.

A logical stream of related events that are written to the same log.

A topic may be partitioned through multiple brokers.