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What is Apache Kafka & Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud?

Use Azure Native Integrations to easily provision, manage, and tightly integrate software and services from software development companies on Azure.

Apache Kafka & Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud is an Azure Marketplace offering that provides Apache Kafka and Apache Flink, an Azure Native Integrations service. A fully managed service, it's designed to help you focus on building your applications instead of on managing clusters.

To reduce the burden of cross-platform management, Microsoft partners with Confluent Cloud to host an integrated provisioning layer from Azure to Confluent Cloud. It provides a consolidated experience for using Confluent Cloud on Azure. You can easily integrate and manage Confluent Cloud with your Azure applications.

Before this integration was available, your option was to buy the Confluent Cloud offering in Azure Marketplace and separately set up the account in Confluent Cloud. To manage configurations and resources, you switched between the portals for Azure and Confluent Cloud.

Now, you provision the Confluent Cloud resources through a resource provider named Microsoft.Confluent. You create and manage Confluent Cloud organization resources in the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, or Azure SDKs. Confluent Cloud owns and runs the software as a service (SaaS) application, including the environments, clusters, topics, API keys, and managed connectors.

Microsoft and Confluent Cloud developed this service and manage it together.

You can find Apache Kafka & Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud in the Azure portal or get it on Azure Marketplace.

Capabilities

Deep integration between Confluent Cloud and Azure gives you key capabilities. You can:

  • Provision a new Confluent Cloud organization resource from the Azure portal with fully managed infrastructure or link to an existing Confluent Cloud organization.
  • Streamline single sign-on (SSO) from Azure to Confluent Cloud with Microsoft Entra ID. No separate authentication is required from the Confluent Cloud portal.
  • Get unified billing of Confluent Cloud consumption through Azure subscription invoicing.
  • Manage Confluent Cloud resources from the Azure portal, and track them on the All resources pane with your other Azure resources.

Confluent organization

A Confluent organization is a resource that provides mapping between your Azure resources and your Confluent Cloud resources. It's the parent resource for other Confluent Cloud resources.

Each Azure subscription can contain multiple Confluent plans. Each Confluent plan is mapped to a user account and organization in the Confluent portal. Within each Confluent organization, you can create multiple environments, clusters, topics, and connectors.

When you provision a Confluent Cloud resource in Azure, you get a Confluent organization ID, a default environment, and a user account. For more information, see Quickstart: Create a Confluent resource in the Azure portal.

Each Confluent Cloud offer you buy in Azure Marketplace maps to a unique Confluent organization for billing.

Single sign-on

When you sign in to the Azure portal, your credentials are also used to sign in to the Confluent Cloud SaaS portal. The experience uses Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft Entra SSO to provide a secure and convenient way for you to sign in.

Billing

Choose from two billing options:

  • Pay-as-you-go monthly plan: Your Confluent Cloud consumption charges appear on your Azure monthly bill.
  • Commitment plan: You sign up for a minimum spend amount and get a discount on your committed usage of Confluent Cloud.

You choose a billing option when you create the service.

Subscribe to Confluent Cloud

You can subscribe to the service through the Azure Marketplace online store or through the Azure portal. Search for it by name: Apache Kafka and Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud.

Subscribe from the Azure portal

Begin by signing in to the Azure portal.

  1. In the Azure portal, on the service menu's global search bar, search for marketplace. In the Services results, select Marketplace.

    The Azure Marketplace Get Started pane appears.

  2. On the command bar, enter the name of the service in the Search the Marketplace search box.

  3. In the search results, choose the provider.

  4. Choose your preferred plan, and then select Subscribe.

The pane for creating a resource appears.

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