advancedPackaging & Running Standalone

Why does packaging a Spring Boot app as an executable 'fat jar' matter for deploying a Kafka microservice?

A fat jar bundles the application plus every dependency (Kafka client library, Spring libraries) into one self-contained file runnable with just `java -jar`, so deployment doesn't require separately installing a matching set of dependency jars on the target machine — the artifact IS the deployable unit.

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