Introduction In distributed systems, failures are inevitable—network partitions, broker crashes, or consumer lag can disrupt data flow. While retries help recover from transient issues, you need stronger guarantees for mission-critical systems. This guide covers three advanced Kafka resilience patterns: Dead-Letter Queues (DLQs) – Handle poison pills and unprocessable messages. Circuit Breakers – Prevent cascading failures when Kafka is unhealthy. Exactly-Once Delivery – Avoid duplicates in financial/transactional systems. Let's dive in! 1. Dead-Letter Queues (DLQs) in Kafka What is a DLQ? A dedicated Kafka topic where "failed" messages are sent after max retries (e.g., malformed payloads, unrecoverable errors). ...