Orbit - Zero Ops Kafka Replication

Offset-Preserving Replication From Any Apache Kafka® Cluster

Orbit allows you to automatically replicate topics (including record offsets), consumer groups, offset gaps, ACLs, and cluster configurations. Works with any source system that is Kafka protocol compatible.

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Zero Ops Kafka Replication

Orbit Deep Dive

Orbit continuously replicates topic data and consumer group offsets from your source cluster into WarpStream — for replication, disaster recovery, or tiered storage. When you're ready to move producers, Auto Migration cuts them over one topic at a time, with zero downtime and no restarts.

Prefer infrastructure-as-code? We’ve got you covered with our Terraform provider.
Built-in observability: Once Orbit is running, get metrics and reporting on throughput, which topics are being mirrored and have finished migrating, and lag for topics currently in migration.
Zero-Downtime Migration

Producers cut over to WarpStream one topic at a time, with zero downtime, zero restarts, and no maintenance window. Each team migrates on its own schedule.

Disaster Recovery

Replicate your primary Kafka cluster to a secondary WarpStream cluster and instantly flip over to the read replica if you have a hardware failure or networking issues, minimizing any downtime and data loss.

Cost-Effective Read Replicas

Offload analytical or batch jobs to isolated hardware. Scale read throughput infinitely and on demand in seconds. Set up dedicated clone clusters per team without impacting production workloads.

Performant Tiered Storage

Orbit can provide tiered storage for any existing Kafka cluster that scales to massive read throughput with consistent performance. Reduce your storage costs by up to 24x.

Low-Latency Geo Replication

Geographically distribute your data to read from the nearest read-only replica to reduce latency.

WarpStream BYOC Overview Video
Orbit Overview
Hear WarpStream Engineer Arjun Nair walk you through how to use Orbit.
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Bring Your Own Cloud
WarpStream's hybrid BYOC deployment model provides the ease of use of a fully cloud hosted solution, but the cost profile, security, and data sovereignty of a self-hosted deployment.
Data Governance
Store all your schemas in WarpStream's Confluent-Compatible BYOC Schema Registry. Do stateless, quick deploys and manage traffic spikes with auto-scaling.
Orbit
Orbit allows you to automatically replicate topics (including record offsets), consumer groups, offset gaps, ACLs, and cluster configurations.
Multi-Region Clusters
Multi-Region Clusters guarantee  zero data loss (RPO=0) out of the box with zero additional operational overhead. Multi-region consensus and automatic failover handling.
Managed Data Pipelines
ETL and stream processing from within your WarpStream Agents and cloud account. No additional infrastructure needed. You own the data pipeline – end to end.
Integrations
WarpStream supports sending data to and from 100+ different sources and destinations out of the box. Just pick your integration and plug it in seamlessly.
WarpStream Tableflow
New!
Tableflow is an Iceberg-native database that materializes tables from any Kafka topic and automates ingestion, compaction, and maintenance. A truly complete real-time data lake solution.
Tableflow data lake architecture diagram
Why Switch?
Learn why teams are switching to WarpStream and choosing a simpler, faster, cloud-native way to stream data at a fraction of the cost.
WarpStream Lightning Topics: 33ms on S3. The trade-off is over.
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FAQs

Don't see an answer to your question? Check our docs, or contact us directly.

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What happens if a migration doesn't complete?

If replication lag doesn't drain within the configured timeout, the topic automatically rolls back to proxying traffic to the source cluster, and the cutover can be retried later. Migrations can also be aborted manually at any point before they complete.

Can I migrate one topic at a time?

Yes. Every topic migrates independently, so teams can move on whatever schedule works for them instead of coordinating a single all-or-nothing cutover.

Does migrating with Orbit require downtime or restarting my producers?

No. Producers update their bootstrap URL to point at WarpStream ahead of time, and WarpStream transparently proxies their traffic to the source cluster until it's time to cut over. During cutover, producers briefly buffer and retry for a few seconds. No application restart, and no coordinated migration window required.

How does this compare to Confluent Cloud Cluster Linking?

Orbit and Confluent Cloud Cluster Linking are very similar in that they both enable offset preserving replication between two Kafka-compatible clusters. The primary difference between the two is that Orbit is built into the WarpStream Agents, and therefore more tightly integrated with WarpStream.

In addition, Orbit is deployed as part of WarpStream's BYOC offering, whereas Cluster Linking is integrated into Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform.

The fact that Orbit is built into the WarpStream Agents makes it feasible to use Orbit in any scenario where WarpStream BYOC is being deployed, whereas it may not have been possible to use Cluster Linking at all since Confluent Cloud would have no way to connect to source Kafka clusters running in the customer's environment without exposing them to the internet.

What do you mean by performant tiered storage?

WarpStream was built from the ground up around commodity object storage, whereas many other tiered storage implementations were bolted on after the fact. While these other tiered storage implementations can reduce storage costs, they incur steep performance penalties when consumers try to actually access tiered data.

WarpStream on the other hand stores data in object storage all the time with no tiering, and therefore provides consistently high performance regardless of whether the data being accessed is recent or historical.

You can read more in our blog post: Tiered Storage Won't Fix Kafka.

How easy is it to use Orbit? What’s involved?

Since Orbit is embedded in the WarpStream Agents, there’s no need to opt-in to it. Orbit can be run (turned on and off) from within the WarpStream Console or via our Terraform provider.

Orbit is controlled via a simple YAML file that we provide. All you have to do is go to the Orbit section within WarpStream, paste in the YAML, save it and click the on-screen controls to change the status from Paused to Running. One instance of Orbit is needed per virtual cluster in WarpStream.

When you're ready to migrate producers, use the Migration tab (or the API) to cut each topic over individually. No YAML changes needed for that step.

You can learn more about how Orbit was designed and how it works in our Orbit blog post.

Is there an additional cost to use Orbit?

Orbit is included as a value-added feature for all WarpStream Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) accounts and billed via our standard Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) billing metrics.