What Is Message Ordering, How Do Partition Keys Affect It, And When Can Ordering Break?

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What Is Message Ordering, How Do Partition Keys Affect It, And When Can Ordering Break?

Message ordering is the guarantee that a messaging system delivers messages to consumers in the same sequence that the producer sent them.

In simpler terms, it means if messages are sent as 1, 2, 3, they should be received and processed as 1, 2, 3 in that exact order.

This ordered delivery is crucial for preserving the chronology of events in many applications.

Most messaging and streaming systems try to maintain FIFO (first-in, first-out) behavior under normal conditions, but you must design carefully for scenarios that could disrupt this order.

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