Systems and methods are described for configuring a data plane of an event streaming platform. An example method includes receiving a topology definition describing a topology of an event streaming platform, and generating, based on the topology definition, a Directed Acyclical Graph (DAG) that represents a data plane of the event streaming platform. The method also includes generating, via a processing device, a simplified data plane pathway based on the DAG, wherein the simplified data plane pathway eliminates intermediate hops between an event source and a final event destination described by the topology definition.