Using assign() givesmanual controlover partition assignment. In this mode:
* B is true: The applicationchooses partitionsdirectly without involving the group coordinator.
* C is true: Since no group coordination occurs,no rebalancinghappens if a consumer dies.
FromKafka Consumer API Docs:
"assign() manually assigns a list of partitions to this consumer. No coordination takes place and no rebalancing is triggered."
* A is false: subscribe() and assign() aremutually exclusive.
* D is incorrect: Partitions don't need to be equal across topics.
Reference:Kafka Consumer Java API > assign() and subscribe()

Consumers can set auto.offset.reset property to earliest to start consuming from beginning. For KSQL, SET 'auto.offset.reset'='earliest';

This will allow consumers to wait and receive more bytes in each fetch request.

Producer idempotence helps prevent the network introduced duplicates. More details herehttps://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Idempotent+Producer

Explanation:
Table # Product, Customers
Stream # Orders_Placed, Shipment_Of_Orders
Tables represent slowly changing, reference data - e.g., customer profiles, product info.
Streams represent real-time event data - e.g., orders placed, shipments processed.
From Kafka Streams Documentation:
"Use KTable for reference datasets, and KStream for event-based processing such as orders or logs." Reference: Kafka Streams API Concepts