Docs Self-Managed Develop Consume Data Follower Fetching This is documentation for Self-Managed v23.2, which is no longer supported. To view the latest available version of the docs, see v24.2. Follower Fetching Learn about follower fetching and how to configure a Redpanda consumer to fetch records from the closest replica. About follower fetching Follower fetching enables a consumer to fetch records from the closest replica of a topic partition, regardless of whether it’s a leader or a follower. For a Redpanda cluster deployed across different datacenters and availability zones (AZs), restricting a consumer to fetch only from the leader of a partition can incur greater costs and have higher latency than fetching from a follower that is geographically closer to the consumer. With follower fetching (proposed in KIP-392), the fetch protocol is extended to support a consumer fetching from any replica. The first fetch from a consumer is processed by a Redpanda leader node. The leader checks for a replica (itself or a follower) that has a rack ID that matches the consumer’s rack ID. If a replica with a matching rack ID is found, the fetch request returns records from that replica. Otherwise, the fetch is handled by the leader. Configure follower fetching Redpanda decides which replica a consumer fetches from. If the consumer configures its client.rack property, Redpanda by default selects a replica from the same rack as the consumer, if available. To enable follower fetching in Redpanda, configure properties for the consumer and the Redpanda cluster and node: Self-hosted Cloud For a Redpanda cluster, set the enable_rack_awareness property to true. For each Redpanda node, set the rack property to a rack ID. For each consumer, set the client.rack property to a rack ID. For each consumer, set the client.rack property to a rack ID. Rack awareness is pre-enabled for cloud-based clusters in multi-AZ environments. Suggested videos YouTube - Redpanda Office Hour: Follower Fetching (52 mins) Back to top × Simple online edits For simple changes, such as fixing a typo, you can edit the content directly on GitHub. Edit on GitHub Or, open an issue to let us know about something that you want us to change. Open an issue Contribution guide For extensive content updates, or if you prefer to work locally, read our contribution guide . Was this helpful? thumb_up thumb_down group Ask in the community mail Share your feedback group_add Make a contribution Consumer Offsets Transactions