Could Someone Give me Advice on Kafka Cluster Configuration for High Availability?

Hello there,

I am currently working on setting up a Kafka cluster for a project and could use some advice on configuring it for high availability. I have gone through the Kafka documentation, but I am looking for some real-world insights and best practices from those who have experience with this.

What replication factor do you recommend for a high availability setup? Should I go with a replication factor of 2 or 3?

How many Kafka brokers should I have in my cluster for optimal high availability?

Any recommendations on hardware configuration for Kafka brokers for a high availability setup?

Also, I have gone through this post: https://forum.confluent.io/t/what-is-the-best-configuration-for-apache-kafka-confluent-kafka-if-i-use-kafka-connect/6085tableau which I definitely helped me out a lot.

What tools do you recommend for monitoring Kafka clusters, and what are the key metrics to watch for ensuring high availability?

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.