# Redpanda EventHub — the Async Backbone

Self-hosted Kafka-compatible backbone. Single-cluster HA, central in South Bend.

- Per-topic tiered retention — operational 7d · analytics 30d · compliance 90d.
- Bundled Schema Registry, Protobuf schemas in central schemas repo with buf CI.
- BACKWARD_TRANSITIVE compatibility — consumers can upgrade independently of producers.
- Topic naming: {domain}.{entity}.{event-type}; site identity lives in the message, not the topic.
- Auth: SASL/OAUTHBEARER via enterprise IdP + prefix ACLs per producer/consumer principal.
- Store-and-forward at ScadaBridge handles WAN outages; analytics-tier retention doubles as a replay surface.