Confluent launches Private Cloud for secure on-premises data
Confluent has announced the availability of Confluent Private Cloud, designed to help organisations deploy, manage, and govern streaming data on private infrastructure.
This new offering from Confluent is intended to provide organisations with a means of achieving cloud-like automation and management capabilities while operating within their own private infrastructure. The launch addresses the increasing need among enterprises, particularly in regulated sectors, to efficiently scale Apache Kafka on-premises without compromising security, control, or compliance requirements.
Enterprise needs
Confluent Private Cloud allows platform teams to deliver streaming data services centrally while maintaining oversight and protecting sensitive operations. The company noted that balancing rapid deployment of real-time data solutions with stringent regulations has been a long-standing challenge for businesses, especially those operating in highly regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare.
"Real-time data is the key to unlocking business growth. It's what helps organizations modernize and stay ahead," said Shaun Clowes, Chief Product Officer at Confluent. "The challenge is that strict regulations can make it harder to scale data streaming across the business. With Confluent Private Cloud, you get the best of both worlds-the agility and simplicity of the cloud with the security and control of your own private infrastructure."
Many organisations find themselves facing a trade-off between moving quickly to realise the benefits of real-time data and ensuring they remain in compliance with legal and industry requirements. Traditional approaches often force platform teams to choose between fast self-service that may introduce risk, or slow and methodical processes that prioritise oversight at the expense of business agility.
Stewart Bond, Vice President of Data Intelligence and Integration Software at market intelligence firm IDC, commented on the growing demand for more sophisticated data management approaches driven by compliance considerations and the growing importance of streaming data.
"The need for real-time data has continued to grow, but privacy and compliance requirements remain a major challenge to scaling it," said Stewart Bond, Vice President of Data Intelligence and Integration Software at IDC. "Businesses must look for solutions that help them strike a balance between delivering a fast self-service experience like a cloud provider and maintaining centralized control of their private infrastructure. With the right strategy, teams can move quickly and confidently, whether their data is in the cloud or on-prem."
Technical features
Confluent Private Cloud features a set of tools and building blocks to support automation, performance improvement, and centralised management. These tools are specifically aimed at organisations that must maintain on-premises deployment due to privacy, security, or compliance requirements, but wish to benefit from features typically offered by public cloud solutions.
Among its primary features, the Confluent Private Cloud Gateway provides a mechanism for secure, managed data traffic routing. The Gateway is designed to enable real-time data transfers even during migrations, policy changes, or infrastructure updates. It functions as a smart network that manages policies centrally and aims to simplify data movement, including during network or infrastructure failures.
Another feature, the Unified Stream Manager (USM), offers centralised compliance management, data tracking, and schema management for both Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud deployments. By consolidating these operational aspects, USM can assist with audits and troubleshooting across hybrid cloud and private environments.
The Intelligent Replication feature addresses performance concerns by delivering improved data streaming speeds, especially for larger-scale operations. According to the company, Intelligent Replication technology is capable of delivering up to a tenfold increase in data streaming performance by optimising replication activities as demand grows. The automation provided by this feature allows platform teams to focus on more strategic work while reducing the need for complex manual operations.
Market context
Confluent's release of the Private Cloud solution is positioned to address the evolving regulatory landscape and increasing demand for real-time data processing, which is driving enterprises to look for more refined tools that combine flexibility with compliance. The company's cloud-native offering aims to assist enterprises in delivering data-driven customer experiences while supporting software-driven operational requirements behind the firewall, wherever their data may reside.
