Message retention in Kafka is disconnected from message consumption. Messages are all persisted to disk and the queues do not need to fit in RAM unlike some other systems. There are configuration values that control maximum log size in terms of MB and the duration of retention which is typically in terms of days, weeks or months, though perhaps hours at very high volumes. While you certainly could configure Kafka so that it would run out of disk space this can be avoided by a combination of configuration changes and bigger or more cheap spinning disks, or distributing the data across more machines.
I hope this helps, though others likely have the configuration values at their fingertips. Christian On Jun 27, 2014 1:09 AM, "Klaus Schaefers" <klaus.schaef...@ligatus.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I am new to Kafka and I have a question how Kafka handles scenarios where > no consumer is available. Can I configure Kafka in such a way that the > messages will be dropped after x seconds? Otherwise I would be afraid that > the queues would overflow... > > Cheers, > > Klaus > > > > -- > > -- > > Klaus Schaefers > Senior Optimization Manager > > Ligatus GmbH > Hohenstaufenring 30-32 > D-50674 Köln > > Tel.: +49 (0) 221 / 56939 -784 > Fax: +49 (0) 221 / 56 939 - 599 > E-Mail: klaus.schaef...@ligatus.com > Web: www.ligatus.de > > HRB Köln 56003 > Geschäftsführung: > Dipl.-Kaufmann Lars Hasselbach, Dipl.-Kaufmann Klaus Ludemann, > Dipl.-Wirtschaftsingenieur Arne Wolter >
