Apache Flink Gains On-Premises Support with Confluent Platform
Apache Flink has emerged as one of the leading frameworks for building distributed stream processing applications. The open source project, which just won a 2024 BigDATAwire Reader’s Choice Award, builds upon data streaming platforms, such as Apache Kafka, by enabling users to apply various operators upon the streaming data, thereby creating dataflows that are executed as part of a directed acyclic graph (DAG).
Confluent Announces General Availability of Confluent Platform for Apache Flink
Organizations that want to take advantage of Apache Flink’s class-leading stream processing capabilities but don’t want to run the setup in the cloud were given another option today when Confluent announced the general availability of its on-prem version of Flink, called Confluent Platform for Apache Flink. The company also announced an addition to WarpStream, the Kafka protocol compatible streaming data system it bought three months ago.
Confluent Platform for Apache Flink
Confluent Platform for Apache Flink is an offering that brings support for Flink to Confluent Platform, which is Confluent’s on-prem offering for enterprise Apache Kafka. The main advantage of Confluent Platform compared to its fully managed offering for Kafka and Flink, Confluent Cloud, is that customers can run it on their own hardware or in a virtual private cloud (VPC).
WarpStream Orbit
Confluent also announced a new offering to its WarpStream line, which used to be a competing streaming data platform that was Kafka protocol-compliant before Confluent acquired it in September. Specifically, Confluent launched WarpStream Orbit, which it says will simplify migrations.
Conclusion
The new Flink software will help to lower the bar for building real-time experiences, says Confluent Chief Product Officer Shaun Clowes. Confluent’s latest announcements will simplify migrations, scale, secure, and manage Flink with ease, unlocking innovation without limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is Confluent Platform for Apache Flink?
A: Confluent Platform for Apache Flink is an offering that brings support for Flink to Confluent Platform, which is Confluent’s on-prem offering for enterprise Apache Kafka.
Q: What is WarpStream Orbit?
A: WarpStream Orbit is a new offering from Confluent that simplifies migrations and makes it easier to move existing workloads from open source Kafka or any Kafka-compatible service to WarpStream clusters.
Q: Why is Confluent releasing an on-premises version of Flink?
A: Confluent is releasing an on-premises version of Flink to give organizations more flexibility and control over their stream processing capabilities.
