Micro-batch or True Streaming?

Trigger Intervals, State TTL, and Cost Modeling At the advanced level, the interviewer is testing whether you frame micro-batch vs true streaming as a cost optimization problem, not a technology preference. The variables are: per-event processing cost, state storage cost, checkpoint overhead, and the business value of each millisecond of reduced latency. Walk through all four to score highest. Checkpoint tuning is where the interviewer will go deep if you claim Flink production experience. The checkpoint interval determines your maximum recovery rollback window. A 5-minute interval means you lose up to 5 minutes of progress on failure. But checkpoints also consume I/O and CPU - tight intervals reduce recovery time but increase steady-state cost. Your answer should name this tradeoff explic