Apache Kafka Meets Table Football

SPOUD, a company based in Bern, Switzerland, developed an innovative application called Töggelomat to track table football scores using Apache Kafka, ksqlDB, and Quarkus. This project, initiated during a SPOUD hackathon, served as an exploration of event-driven architectures and real-time data processing, allowing the team to leverage their expertise in Kafka while experimenting with ksqlDB and Quarkus, which they found particularly effective for cloud-based applications due to its reactive nature and efficient performance. The application transforms employees into players with initial scores, randomly generates matches, and updates player rankings based on match outcomes, demonstrating the dynamic nature of event-stream processing. The development process highlighted both the potential and challenges of using event-driven systems compared to traditional database management systems, particularly in terms of maintaining consistency and managing dependencies. The project also underscored the flexibility of using Confluent Cloud for scalable data processing, despite some limitations in service sizing. Overall, the Töggelomat project not only enriched SPOUD's technological repertoire but also provided a platform for potential future enhancements like real-time dashboards and integrations, showcasing the possibilities of modular event-driven applications.