Hello everyone! Join us for an Apache Kafka® meetup on **May 12th from 5:30pm** The address, agenda, and speaker information can be found below. See you there! **Venue**: IBM 259 George Street Floor/Room: 17.03 \*\*\* **Agenda:** * 5:30pm: Doors open * 5:30pm - 6:00pm: Pizza, Drinks, and Networking * 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Liz Fong, Technical Fellow, [honeycomb.io](https://honeycomb.io/) * 6:30pm - 7:00pm: Ravi Bhardwaj, Principal Technical Support Engineer, Confluent * 7:00pm - 7:30pm: Additional Networking \*\*\* **Speaker:** Ravi Bhardwaj, Principal Technical Support Engineer, Confluent **Talk:** From Dumb Pipes to Smart Streams: Schema IDs in Kafka Headers **Abstract:** Most Kafka clusters still move loosely structured JSON around, making data hard to trust and reuse. Schema Registry traditionally added magic byte in the payload containing the schema id which meant adding schemas could break down stream systems. With the new Schema Registry Serdes, users can add the schema ids in the kafka record headers. In this talk we'll explore the advantages of adding the schema ids in the headers, how to make this change and what the strategies that users can follow for smooth migration to Kafka headers based schema ids. \-\-\-\-\- **Speaker:** Liz Fong, Technical Fellow, [honeycomb.io](https://honeycomb.io/) **Talk:** Making Cluster Migrations Safe and Smooth **Abstract:** In this session, we will walk through the transition from EC2-based Kafka clusters to Kubernetes-managed infrastructure. The talk will cover how the migration of several high-volume, production-critical clusters was planned, rehearsed, and executed, with a deep dive into dual-write and offset synchronization mechanisms used to ensure a smooth and reliable transition. \*\*\* If you would like to speak or host our next event please let us know! community@[confluent.io](http://confluent.io/)