Connect to External Systems in Confluent Cloud¶
Confluent Cloud offers pre-built, fully managed, Apache Kafka® Connectors that make it easy to instantly connect to popular data sources and sinks. With a simple UI-based configuration and elastic scaling with no infrastructure to manage, Confluent Cloud Connectors make moving data in and out of Kafka an effortless task, giving you more time to focus on app development.
Note
- If you want to bring your custom connector to Confluent Cloud, see Custom Connectors for Confluent Cloud.
- Connect with Confluent is a program where partners work with Confluent to set up a Partner Integration. From this integration, your customers can start producing and consuming with a few clicks in your UI. For more information, see Connect with Confluent.
- Source connector
- A source connector, such as the Microsoft SQL Server Source connector, ingests entire databases and streams table updates to Kafka topics. It can also collect metrics from all of your application servers and store these in Kafka topics, making the data available for stream processing with low latency.
- Sink connector
- A sink connector delivers data from Kafka topics into secondary indexes, such as Google BigQuery or batch systems like Amazon S3, for offline analysis.
Note
- For connector billing information, see Kafka Connect Billing.
- For connector limitations, see Limits for Confluent Cloud Connectors.
Supported connectors¶
The following Confluent Cloud connectors are supported by Confluent:
- ActiveMQ Source
- AlloyDB Sink
- Amazon CloudWatch Logs Source
- Amazon CloudWatch Metrics Sink
- Amazon DynamoDB Sink
- Amazon Kinesis Source
- Amazon Redshift Sink
- Amazon SQS Source
- Amazon S3 Sink
- Amazon S3 Source
- AWS Lambda Sink
- Azure Blob Storage Sink
- Azure Blob Storage Source
- Azure Cognitive Search Sink
- Azure Cosmos DB Sink
- Azure Cosmos DB Source
- Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Sink
- Azure Event Hubs Source
- Azure Functions Sink
- Azure Log Analytics Sink
- Azure Service Bus Source
- Azure Synapse Analytics Sink
- Databricks Delta Lake Sink
- Datadog Metrics Sink
- Datagen Source (development and testing)
- Elasticsearch Service Sink
- GitHub Source
- Google BigQuery Sink
- Google Cloud BigTable Sink
- Google Cloud Functions Sink
- Google Cloud Spanner Sink
- Google Cloud Storage Sink
- Google Cloud Storage Source
- Google Cloud Pub/Sub Source
- HTTP Sink
- HTTP Source
- IBM MQ Source
- InfluxDB 2 Sink
- InfluxDB 2 Source
- Jira Source
- Microsoft SQL Server CDC Source (Debezium)
- Microsoft SQL Server Sink (JDBC)
- Microsoft SQL Server Source (JDBC)
- MongoDB Atlas Sink
- MongoDB Atlas Source
- MQTT Sink
- MQTT Source
- MySQL CDC Source (Debezium)
- MySQL Sink (JDBC)
- MySQL Source (JDBC)
- New Relic Metrics Sink
- Oracle CDC Source
- Oracle Database Sink
- Oracle Database Source
- PagerDuty Sink
- PostgreSQL CDC Source (Debezium)
- PostgreSQL Sink (JDBC)
- PostgreSQL Source (JDBC)
- RabbitMQ Sink
- RabbitMQ Source Connector
- Redis Sink
- Salesforce Bulk API Source
- Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink
- Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Source
- Salesforce CDC Source
- Salesforce Platform Event Sink
- Salesforce Platform Event Source
- Salesforce PushTopic Source
- Salesforce SObject Sink
- ServiceNow Sink
- ServiceNow Source
- SFTP Sink
- SFTP Source
- Snowflake Sink
- Solace Sink
- Splunk Sink
- Zendesk Source
Preview connectors¶
Caution
Preview features are not currently supported and are not recommended for production use. A preview feature is a Confluent Cloud component that is being introduced to gain early feedback. Preview connectors and features can be used for evaluation and non-production testing purposes or to provide feedback to Confluent. Comments, questions, and suggestions related to preview features are encouraged and can be submitted to ccloud-connect-preview@confluent.io.
The following Confluent Cloud connectors are available for preview:
Cloud platforms support¶
The following table shows the cloud platforms supported by each connector.
| Cloud Connector | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon CloudWatch Logs Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Amazon CloudWatch Metrics Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon DynamoDB Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon Kinesis Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Amazon Redshift Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon SQS Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Amazon S3 Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon S3 Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AWS Lambda Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Azure Blob Storage Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Blob Storage Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Azure Cognitive Search Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Cosmos DB Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Cosmos DB Source | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Event Hubs Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Azure Functions Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Azure Service Bus Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Azure Synapse Analytics Sink | No | Yes | No |
| Databricks Delta Lake Sink | Yes | No | No |
| Datadog Metrics Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Datagen Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Elasticsearch Service Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google BigQuery Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud BigTable Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud Dataproc Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud Functions Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud Spanner Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud Storage Sink | No | No | Yes |
| Google Cloud Storage Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google Cloud Pub/Sub Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IBM MQ Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| InfluxDB 2 Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| InfluxDB 2 Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Jira Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft SQL Server Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft SQL Server Source CDC (Debezium) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft SQL Server Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MongoDB Atlas Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MongoDB Atlas Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MQTT Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MQTT Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL Source CDC (Debezium) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| New Relic Metrics Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle CDC Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Database Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Database Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PagerDuty Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PostgreSQL CDC Source (Debezium) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PostgreSQL Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PostgreSQL Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RabbitMQ Sink Connector | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RabbitMQ Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Redis Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce Bulk API Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce CDC Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce Platform Event Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce Platform Event Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce PushTopic Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Salesforce SObject Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ServiceNow Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ServiceNow Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SFTP Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SFTP Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Snowflake Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Solace Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Splunk Sink | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zendesk Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Networking, DNS, and service endpoints¶
Consider the following when determining the public Internet access configuration for resources that fully-managed connectors must access. For Confluent Cloud networking details, see the Cloud Networking docs.
Networking¶
The following tabs provide network connectivity IP address details. Note that a Connect node runs in the same VPC/VNet as the cluster the Connect node was provisioned with. This is true for all cluster types (Basic, Standard, Enterprise (Limited Availability) and Dedicated). For Confluent Cloud networking details, see the Cloud Networking docs.
Note
- Static egress IP addresses are available on all the major cloud platforms. For details, see Egress Static IP Addresses.
- Static egress IP addresses are not supported with Custom Connectors.
The following information applies to a managed Sink or Source connector connecting to an external system using a public IP address.
| Cluster network type | Public IP address connectivity | IP range used by the connector |
|---|---|---|
| Public Endpoint | Yes | Fixed set of egress static IP addresses (see egress static IP addresses) |
| VPC Peering and Transit Gateway | Yes | Dynamic public IP/CIDR range from the cloud provider region where the Confluent Cloud cluster is located |
| Private Link | Yes | Dynamic public IP/CIDR range from the cloud provider region where the Confluent Cloud cluster is located |
The following information applies to a managed Sink or Source connector connecting to an external system using a private IP address.
| Cluster network type | Private IP address connectivity | IP range used by the connector |
|---|---|---|
| VPC Peering and Transit Gateway | Yes | Source IP address used is from the /16 CIDR range configured by the customer for the Confluent Cloud Cluster |
| Private Link | No | N/A |
| Public Endpoint | No | N/A |
Note
See the following cloud provider documentation for additional information:
DNS considerations¶
Fully qualified domain names: Some services require fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) to access the service. In order for a managed connector to access such a service, the service must use public DNS records pointing to the IP address (public or private). Private DNS zones are not supported in Confluent Cloud.
Private service endpoints: Cloud service providers offer the ability to set up private endpoints with custom or vanity DNS names for native cloud provider services. Private endpoints are only supported if the provider supports resolving the endpoints using public DNS.
Service and gateway endpoints¶
Azure service endpoints and AWS gateway endpoints provide secure and direct private connectivity to Azure and AWS services over the cloud provider network backbone using an optimized route. These endpoints are located in the Confluent Cloud VPC/Vnet.
Managed connector network traffic is routed over cloud service provider (CSP) secure public endpoints for the following services:
- AWS
- Azure
- Azure Blob Storage
- Azure Cosmos DB
- Azure Event Hubs
- Azure Service Bus
- Microsoft SQL Server
Private hosted services and peered VPCs¶
Under certain scenarios you must use a proxy configuration to allow a connector to attach to a database, storage, or other service running on a private host. A specific scenario for using a proxy is when Kafka clusters are in a peered VPC configuration and a connector needs to attach to a non-peered VPC. This is because peering network connectivity is non-transitive so the connector cannot attach to endpoints in the non-peered VPC.
The following shows an example of this scenario on GCP where a proxy configuration is required.
There are the following three VPCs running on GCP:
- VPC A: The Confluent Cloud VPC.
- VPC B: The customer VPC.
- VPC C: The Cloud SQL VPC.
In this configuration, there is no transitive peering from VPC A to the private Cloud SQL database running on VPC C. For the connector to be able to attach to the database, a proxy client is added to VPC B so the connector can attach to a proxy server added to VPC C. For more information about setting up this GCP proxy configuration, see How the Cloud SQL Auth proxy works).
Note
AWS Transit Gateway (TGW) clusters do not have this transitive issue unless there is a third VPC to connect to. For example, Confluent Cloud VPC A > TGW > Customer VPC B > Customer VPC C (or a cloud service VPC C as shown in the GCP example scenario).
For Confluent Cloud networking details, see the Cloud Networking docs.
Confluent Cloud API for Connect¶
For information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for fully-managed connectors, see the Confluent Cloud API for Connect documentation.
Custom connectors¶
For information about bringing a custom connector for Confluent Cloud, see Custom Connectors for Confluent Cloud.
Cloud Console connector controls¶
You can use the GUI buttons to start, stop, pause, and delete a connector. Select and display one of your listed connectors to view the controls.
Connector data previews¶
For information about connector data previews, see Confluent Cloud Connector Data Previews.
Single message transforms¶
For information about using single message transforms (SMTs), see Configure Single Message Transforms for Kafka Connectors in Confluent Cloud.
View connector events¶
For information about viewing Confluent Cloud connector events, see View Confluent Cloud Connector Events.
Important
Viewing connector events is restricted to the OrganizationAdmin RBAC role. Viewing events is not available for other roles.
Service accounts¶
For information about setting up service accounts, see Confluent Cloud Connector Service Accounts.
RBAC for managed connectors¶
For information about RBAC and managed connectors, see RBAC for Managed Connectors in Confluent Cloud.
Dead letter queue¶
For information about accessing and using the Confluent Cloud Dead Letter Queue, see Confluent Cloud Dead Letter Queue.
Connector limitations¶
To view a list of connector limitations, see Limits for Confluent Cloud Connectors.