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// overview/overview.adoc

[id="kafka-components_{context}"]
= Strimzi deployment of Kafka

Strimzi enables the deployment of Apache Kafka components to a Kubernetes cluster, typically running as clusters for high availability.

A standard Kafka deployment using Strimzi might include the following components:

* *Kafka* cluster of broker nodes as the core component
* *Kafka Connect* cluster for external data connections
* *Kafka MirrorMaker* cluster to mirror data to another Kafka cluster
* *Kafka Exporter* to extract additional Kafka metrics data for monitoring
* *Kafka Bridge* to enable HTTP-based communication with Kafka
* *Cruise Control* to rebalance topic partitions across brokers

Not all of these components are required, though you need Kafka as a minimum for a Strimzi-managed Kafka cluster.
Depending on your use case, you can deploy the additional components as needed. 
These components can also be used with Kafka clusters that are not managed by Strimzi.

//Overview of Kafka component interaction
include::../../modules/overview/con-kafka-concepts-components.adoc[leveloffset=+1]
