Confluent, Microsoft partnership to modernize data infrastructure in the cloud

Confluent, Inc., the data streaming platform that puts data in motion, has announced a new strategic partnership agreement with Microsoft. The collaboration increases investments in technology integration, solution development, and go-to-market activities. With this commitment, Confluent and Microsoft hope to reduce the operational burden of managing data streams in Azure and accelerate real-time application development in the cloud.

“COVID-driven disruption has drastically accelerated timelines for delivering end-to-end digital experiences and real-time operations,” said Erica Schultz, President of Field Operations, Confluent. “We are extremely dedicated to ensuring our customers can innovate fast in the cloud, and have deepened our partnership with Microsoft to support businesses at this critical time in their transformation.”

“Streaming data in the cloud is the foundation of next-generation customer experiences and business operations,” said Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Microsoft. “Through Microsoft and Confluent’s expanded relationship, more organizations will be able to fully realize the power of cloud-native data streaming and benefit from faster development of modern applications with easier access to real-time data in the cloud.”

Confluent and Microsoft have made strides in tightening integrations, extending Confluent’s managed cloud connectors across Azure services, and supporting customers’ business-level initiatives since the start of their strategic alliance.

Confluent maintains the industry’s largest portfolio of data streaming connectors and recently released new fully managed connectors for Azure deployments, including Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Synapse Analytics. These pre-built connectors are designed with Confluent’s expertise in Apache Kafka® to save organizations the months of engineering time typically required to build and maintain custom integrations.

Confluent and Azure make it simple to get data moving. Confluent Cloud can be accessed quickly with a single sign-on via Azure Marketplace’s Active Directory, and billing is integrated with Azure billing accounts for easy cost management. Confluent on Azure is one of the simplest ways to get started with Kafka, and it alleviates the operational burden of managing a complex, open-source distributed system.