// Module included in the following assemblies:
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// assembly-dedicated-nodes.adoc

[id='con-dedicated-nodes-{context}']
= Dedicated nodes

Cluster administrators can mark selected Kubernetes nodes as tainted.
Nodes with taints are excluded from regular scheduling and normal pods will not be scheduled to run on them.
Only services which can tolerate the taint set on the node can be scheduled on it.
The only other services running on such nodes will be system services such as log collectors or software defined networks.

Taints can be used to create dedicated nodes.
Running Kafka and its components on dedicated nodes can have many advantages.
There will be no other applications running on the same nodes which could cause disturbance or consume the resources needed for Kafka.
That can lead to improved performance and stability.

To schedule Kafka pods on the dedicated nodes, configure xref:affinity-{context}[node affinity] and xref:tolerations-{context}[tolerations].
