Azure Event Hubs is a fully managed event streaming service from Microsoft for ingesting and processing millions of events per second. The service is compatible with Apache Kafka and ideal for big data pipelines, IoT telemetry and real-time analytics.
What is Azure Event Hubs?
Azure Event Hubs is Microsoft’s answer to the challenge of processing massive data streams in real-time. The service functions as a “Big Data Telemetry Service” and can ingest, store and provide millions of events per second for processing.
The architecture is based on a partitioning model: Events are distributed across partitions based on partition key. Partitions enable parallel processing by multiple consumers. Consumer Groups allow multiple applications to read the same Event Hub independently without affecting each other.
A unique feature: Event Hubs offers native Kafka compatibility (Kafka 1.0+ Protocol). Existing Kafka applications can migrate without code changes. Simply point the connection string to Event Hubs.
For GDPR-compliant data processing, Event Hubs is available in European Azure regions. The service meets ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA and other compliance standards.
Core Features
- Native Kafka protocol compatibility for seamless migration
- Partitioning for parallel processing and ordered delivery
- Consumer Groups for independent application reads
- Capture for automatic archiving to Blob Storage or Data Lake
- Auto-Inflate for automatic throughput scaling
Typical Use Cases
- IoT telemetry ingestion from thousands of devices
- Application logging from distributed microservices
- Clickstream analytics for real-time user behavior
- Fraud detection with streaming ML models
- Event-driven microservices with Event Sourcing patterns
Benefits
- Scales to millions of events per second
- No infrastructure management required
- Kafka-compatible for easy migration
- GDPR-compliant in European regions
Integration with innFactory
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, innFactory supports you with Azure Event Hubs: event-driven architecture design, Kafka migration, Stream Analytics pipelines, IoT platforms and performance optimization.
Available Tiers & Options
Basic
- Low cost for development and testing
- 1 Consumer Group
- 24h Retention
- Max 1 Throughput Unit
- No Kafka support
Standard
- Up to 40 Throughput Units (40 MB/s Ingress)
- 20 Consumer Groups
- Up to 7 days retention
- Kafka Protocol Support
- Costs at low utilization
Premium
- Dedicated Processing Units (no noisy neighbor)
- Up to 90 days retention
- Private Endpoints (VNET)
- Customer-Managed Keys
- Higher costs
- Minimum 1 PU = approx. 700 EUR/month
Dedicated
- Single-Tenant Deployment
- Guaranteed capacity
- Up to 120 MB/s per CU
- Ideal for > 2 MB/s sustained
- Very high costs (from approx. 6,000 EUR/month)
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Event Hubs and Service Bus?
Event Hubs is optimized for high throughput (millions of events/second) and streaming. Service Bus offers advanced messaging features like transactions, sessions and dead-letter queues. Event Hubs = Big Data Ingestion, Service Bus = Enterprise Messaging.
Can I use Kafka clients with Event Hubs?
Yes, Event Hubs provides a Kafka-compatible endpoint (Standard and higher). Existing Kafka applications can migrate to Event Hubs without code changes. Simply adjust the connection string.
What are Throughput Units and how many do I need?
1 TU = 1 MB/s Ingress or 2 MB/s Egress. For 5 MB/s sustained ingress you need 5 TUs. Auto-Inflate can automatically scale TUs based on load.
How does Event Hubs Capture work?
Capture automatically writes all events to Azure Blob Storage or Data Lake in Avro format. Ideal for cold storage, compliance or replay scenarios. Enable Capture and define intervals (time or size).
What are Consumer Groups?
Consumer Groups allow multiple applications to read the same Event Hub independently. Each Consumer Group has its own offsets. Example: One app for real-time analytics, one for archiving.
