Confluent Cloud and Confluent Platform 7.0 have introduced a streamlined feature for removing Apache Kafka brokers, aimed at simplifying the process of shrinking Confluent Server clusters. While the removal of Kafka brokers appears straightforward, the feature addresses several complexities, including the need to pre-compute capacity to prevent under-replicated partitions and ensure sufficient in-sync replicas (ISRs). The enhanced broker removal operation includes intelligent partition reassignment using the AlterPartitionReassignments API and relies on Confluent's Self-Balancing Clusters to redistribute partitions and maintain cluster balance. It also introduces a Broker Replica Exclusion API to prevent new replica placements on brokers slated for removal, ensuring a robust and error-free process. The operation is designed to be idempotent and resilient to failures, with state persistence in a Kafka topic, allowing for seamless recovery and continuation of the removal process. This feature not only enhances flexibility in managing cluster resources but also aligns with Kubernetes operational patterns, maintaining backward compatibility through a new conditional flag for broker shutdown.