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1. Read a message multiple times
2. Consume only a subset of the partitions in a topic in a process
3. Manage transactions to make sure a message is processed once and only once

Downsides of using SimpleConsumer

The SimpleConsumer does require a significant amount of work not needed in the Consumer Groups:

1. You must keep track of the offsets in your application to know where you left off consuming.
2. You must figure out which Broker is the lead Broker for a topic and partition
3. You must handle Broker leader changes

Steps for using a SimpleConsumer

1. Find an active Broker and find out which Broker is the leader for your topic and partition
2. Determine who the replica Brokers are for your topic and partition
3. Build the request defining what data you are interested in
4. Fetch the data
5. Identify and recover from leader changes

Finding the Lead Broker for a Topic and Partition

The easiest way to do this is to pass in a set of known Brokers to your logic, either via a properties file or the command line. These don’t have to be all the Brokers in the cluster, rather just a set where you can start looking for a live Broker to query for Leader information.

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