Get Kafka-Nated S2E2: Viktor Kessler on Apache Iceberg, OSS, and Community

In this episode, we sit down with Viktor Kessler, co-founder of Vakamo, major contributor to Lakekeeper, and organiser of Apache Iceberg Meetup Europe, to explore the evolving world of Apache Iceberg. From architectural deep dives to open-source governance, Viktor shares insights from building an Iceberg REST catalog in Rust, launching a company around open data governance and growing the European Iceberg community from Dublin to Vilnius. If you’re working with data platforms, streaming systems like Kafka and Flink or building lakehouse architectures, this episode is packed with practical insight and forward-looking ideas. What We’ll Cover: - What Apache Iceberg really is (and why it’s “a database table without a database”) - The origin story of Lakekeeper and why the Iceberg REST catalog matters - Open governance and avoiding vendor lock-in in the lakehouse era - The relationship between Iceberg, streaming and Apache Kafka - Building a company around open source: trade-offs and philosophy - Why metadata (not just data) is the next big battleground Timestamps: 00:48 – How Viktor got involved with Apache Iceberg 04:16 – The origin of Lakekeeper 08:44 – Iceberg & Kafka: streaming meets table formats 12:09 – Open governance and building Vakamo 15:22 – Why metadata is becoming critical 19:45 – Balancing open source with building a business 28:09 – Lessons from growing the European Iceberg community 32:05 – What’s next for Iceberg? 38:19 – Should projects join a foundation? Useful Links: - Subscribe for more data engineering content: https://www.youtube.com/@Aiven - Aiven website: https://aiven.io - Apache Iceberg: https://iceberg.apache.org - Lakekeeper GitHub: https://github.com/lakekeeper #ApacheIceberg #DataEngineering #Lakehouse #OpenSource #Kafka