According to the Apache Kafka producer documentation, serialization is configured independently for message keys and values. The key and value can use different serializers depending on their data types.
In this scenario, the message key is a string, so the producer must be configured with org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer for the key. The value contains JSON, so a suitable JSON serializer must be configured for the value, such as a custom JSON serializer, a library-based serializer, or a byte-array serializer after converting the JSON to bytes.
Option B correctly reflects this separation by specifying a string serializer for the key and a JSON serializer for the value. Kafka does not automatically infer serializers, and setting a serializer to null is invalid. Additionally, there is no built-in “JSON” serializer for keys, making Option D incorrect.
Therefore, the correct approach—fully aligned with Kafka’s producer configuration model—is to explicitly configure a StringSerializer for the key and a JSON-capable serializer for the value.
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