The more the nodes in a ZK ensemble (quorum) the faster the reads but the slower the writes. That's because a read can be done from any node, but a write is not complete before all nodes are updated. On top of that, early versions of Kafka (0.8.2 and older) keep Kafka offsets on ZK. Therefore, as already suggested by @mqureshi, it's the best to start by creating a dedicated ZK for Kafka, I'd go for 3 nodes, and keep the 5-node ZK for everything else. Beefing up the number of ZK's to 7 or more is a resounding No. Regarding the installation and management of the new Kafka ZK, it's pretty straightforward to install it manually, just follow the steps in one of "Non-Ambari cluster installation guides" like this one. You can also try to create a cluster composed of only Kafka and ZK and manage it by its own Ambari instance. ... View more