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Confluent Automates Deployment and Management of Apache Kafka® on Kubernetes

Run Confluent Platform across a variety of platforms, both on premises and in the cloud, using Kubernetes for ultimate deployment versatility

Palo Alto, Calif. – May 3, 2018 – Confluent, provider of the leading streaming platform based on Apache Kafka®, today announced the Confluent Operator, an enterprise-grade solution to provision and manage Apache Kafka on Kubernetes for scalability and deployment flexibility. Now, enterprises can deploy Kafka as a cloud-native application on Kubernetes to simplify provisioning, automate management and minimize the operating burden of managing Kafka clusters by using one common operating model.

Confluent Platform, the enterprise distribution of Apache Kafka, is intended for large-scale production environments. It improves Apache Kafka by expanding its integration capabilities, adding tools to optimize and manage Kafka clusters, and ensuring the streams are secure. With Confluent Platform’s native support for Kubernetes, developers and operators can automate Kafka operations on Kubernetes in production. Confluent provides production-ready Confluent Platform Docker images, configuration templates for Kubernetes, a reference architecture with best practices for running Kafka on Kubernetes, as well as the Confluent Operator to automate cluster operations.

Key Features

Automate cluster management – orchestrate Kafka clusters with the Confluent Operator and operationalize the management best practices acquired by Confluent from years of running Kafka in production.
Complete streaming platform – deploy a complete streaming platform on Kubernetes with support for the entire Confluent Platform.
Deployment flexibility – deploy Confluent Platform on the major Kubernetes installations and cloud providers using one common operating model, including platforms such as Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Heptio Kubernetes Subscription, Mesosphere DC/OS and Red Hat OpenShift; as well as Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), Google Cloud Kubernetes Engine and Microsoft Azure Container Service (AKS).

“With the Confluent Operator, we’re unlocking the ability to seamlessly deploy and run Kafka and the entire Confluent Platform on Kubernetes,” said Neha Narkhede, co-founder and CTO at Confluent. “We are productizing our experience of running Kafka on Kubernetes in Confluent Cloud, by providing best practices and automation for running mission-critical deployments of Kafka and Confluent Platform on Kubernetes.”

Supporting Quotes

“Pivotal works with many of the world’s largest enterprises to modernize their applications and data architectures. Moreover, Apache Kafka® has emerged as a key component in these modern cloud-native applications,” said Ian Andrews, Vice President, Products, Pivotal. “Through our Spring Framework, Pivotal has supported Kafka for many years, and bringing Confluent’s enterprise distribution of Kafka to the Pivotal Cloud Foundry ecosystem would be a natural next step. We look forward to Confluent developing an Operator for Kubernetes on Pivotal Container Service (PKS) and activating a fast on-ramp for developers who want to use Kafka securely across any public and private clouds.”

“Heptio is delighted to welcome Confluent to the Kubernetes community,” said Craig McLuckie, CEO and co-founder, Heptio. “Kubernetes radically simplifies the deployment and operation of connected systems and is an ideal operating environment for enterprise workloads. Given the critical role that Kafka plays in modern application architectures, Confluent’s commitment to supporting Kubernetes is an important milestone in the cloud native computing journey.”

“Enterprises are choosing Mesosphere DC/OS to run, upgrade and scale Kubernetes across any combination of infrastructure, multi-cloud or on-premise, with a seamless operational experience,” said Tobi Knaup, CTO and co-founder at Mesosphere. “Many of our customers run Apache Kafka and Confluent Platform on DC/OS to enable IoT and machine learning use cases. We’re looking forward to collaborating with Confluent to deliver the best customer experience for Apache Kafka and Kubernetes.”

Availability

The Confluent Operator includes a rollout of pre-built Docker images for the entire Confluent Platform, Kubernetes configuration templates, a reference architecture to deploy Confluent Platform on Kubernetes and the Operator itself. They will be made available throughout the year – visit www.confluent.io/kubernetes to stay informed on the availability of each component.

Resources

For more details, visit: https://www.confluent.io/kubernetes
Read the Confluent blog post: http://cnfl.io/kafka-kubernetes-blog
Read the Pivotal blog post: https://content.pivotal.io/blog/operationalizing-apache-kafka-on-kubernetes-pivotal-and-confluent-team-up
Join the “Stateful, Stateless and Serverless – Running Apache Kafka on Kubernetes” online talk with Heptio and Confluent: http://cnfl.io/heptio-confluent

About Confluent

Confluent, founded by the original creators of Apache Kafka®, provides the leading streaming platform that enables enterprises to maximize the value of data. With a streaming platform that spans to the edges of an organization and captures data into streams of real-time events, businesses in industries such as retail, logistics, manufacturing, financial services, technology and media are able to respond in real time to every customer event, transaction, user experience and market movement whether on premises or in the cloud. Backed by Benchmark, Index Ventures and Sequoia, Confluent is based in Palo Alto, California. To learn more, please visit www.confluent.io. Download Confluent Open Source at www.confluent.io/download.

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