AZ-900 Describe Azure architecture and services Practice Question
Which Azure service provides a managed Apache Kafka-as-a-service offering that allows existing Kafka applications to work without code changes?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Azure HDInsight with Kafka (a traditional managed cluster) as the only Kafka-as-a-service option, overlooking Event Hubs' Kafka protocol support which offers a simpler, serverless alternative.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Azure Event Hubs with Kafka protocol support
Azure Event Hubs with Kafka protocol support provides a fully managed, Apache Kafka-compatible endpoint that allows existing Kafka producer and consumer applications to connect without any code changes. This service leverages the Kafka protocol 1.0 and later, enabling seamless migration of Kafka workloads to Azure while benefiting from Event Hubs' scalability and security features.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Azure HDInsight with Kafka
Why it's wrong here
Azure HDInsight with Kafka is a managed Apache Kafka cluster, but it still requires you to provision, scale, monitor, and maintain the underlying VMs and cluster nodes. You are responsible for cluster lifecycle tasks like patching OS, managing replication, and tuning Kafka configuration, which contradicts the goal of fully removing operational overhead. Event Hubs, by contrast, exposes a Kafka-compatible endpoint on a serverless ingestion service where Azure handles the entire infrastructure, so no cluster management is needed at all.
- ✓
Azure Event Hubs with Kafka protocol support
Why this is correct
Azure Event Hubs is the correct choice because it implements the Kafka wire protocol on its native, fully managed event streaming platform. Existing Kafka producers and consumers can connect by simply pointing them to the Event Hubs namespace with the appropriate connection string—no application code changes or Kafka cluster management are required. Event Hubs provides durable event capture, automatic throughput scaling, and compatibility with Kafka client libraries up to protocol version 1.0+, making it the only option here that directly supports the customer's requirement.
- ✗
Azure Service Bus
Why it's wrong here
Azure Service Bus is a brokered messaging service designed for enterprise message queues and pub/sub scenarios, with features like sessions, transactions, and dead-lettering. It does not implement the Kafka wire protocol, so existing Kafka applications cannot connect to it without rewriting their client code and replacing their Kafka libraries. This makes it unsuitable for the stated need of lifting and shifting a Kafka app without code changes, even though Service Bus is a capable message broker in other contexts.
- ✗
Azure Event Grid
Why it's wrong here
Azure Event Grid is a serverless event routing service that delivers discrete events from publishers to subscribers using a push-based model. It is optimized for high-throughput event notifications between Azure services, not for durably storing an ordered event stream or speaking the Kafka protocol. Kafka clients cannot communicate with Event Grid, and Event Grid also lacks Kafka-compatible partitioning, offsets, and consumer-group semantics, so it cannot serve as a drop-in replacement for the existing Kafka application.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Azure Regions and Geographies
Key term
Security
Security in IT is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, damage, or theft.
Key term
Scalability
Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources, either by making the existing resources more powerful (vertical scaling) or by adding more resources (horizontal scaling).
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-900 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-900 exam.