Getting started with Aiven for Apache Kafka®
============================================

Aiven services are managed in the Aiven `web
console <https://console.aiven.io/>`__ . When you first log in to the
console with your email address and password, you will see the
**Services** view, which shows you all the services in the currently
selected project.

Aiven for Apache Kafka® is a managed service offered by Aiven. The first step in using Aiven for Apache Kafka® is to create a service. You can do so using the `Aiven Console <https://console.aiven.io/>`_ or the :doc:`Aiven CLI </docs/tools/cli>`.

Create an Aiven for Apache Kafka® service
--------------------------------------------

1. Log in to the `Aiven Console <https://console.aiven.io/>`_.

2. Follow :doc:`these instructions </docs/platform/howto/create_new_service>` to create a new Aiven for Apache Kafka service.

   Once the service is ready, the status changes to *Running*. Depending on your selected cloud provider and region, this generally takes a couple of minutes.


Next steps
----------

* Check our `examples project <https://github.com/aiven/aiven-examples>`_ to find code samples to get your application connected.

* Try our `sample data generator project <https://github.com/aiven/python-fake-data-producer-for-apache-kafka>`_ to give you some data to get started with.