Confluent Cloud Network on Azure

Each Confluent Cloud network is a virtual network that is provisioned in your Confluent Cloud Azure account.

You can create multiple Dedicated Kafka clusters within each Confluent Cloud network.

For details on default service quotas, see Network service quotas.

Prerequisites

Before you create a Confluent Cloud network, you need the following information.

Name your Confluent Cloud network

The name you choose is used to identify your network in the Confluent Cloud Console and when using the Confluent CLI. Choose a meaningful name, but consider including the connection type in the name (for example, azure-australia-east-private-link).

Select Region and Availability Zones

Dedicated clusters you create in your Confluent Cloud network inherit the selected Region and Availability Zones.

Select CIDR blocks (for VNet Peering only)

This prerequisite only applies to networks of type VNet Peering.

Private Link networks allocate addresses from existing VNet subnets and do not require an additional CIDR block.

Select /16 CIDR blocks for your Confluent Cloud network for use with your VNet Peering on Azure.

Review the following requirements for CIDR block selections:

  • The CIDR block must be in one of the following private networks, as mentioned in RFC 1918.

    • 10.0.0.0/8
    • 100.64.0.0/10
    • 172.16.0.0/12
    • 192.168.0.0/16
    • 198.18.0.0/15
  • The CIDR block cannot be any of the following:

    • 10.253.0.0/16
    • 10.254.0.0/16
    • 172.17.0.0/16
    • 172.30.0.0/16
    • 172.31.0.0/16

    CIDRs for your VNet cannot overlap with the above CIDR blocks due to routing conflicts with Confluent services. More specifically, you cannot peer the Confluent Cloud network with your VNet using any of the above CIDRs.

  • Additional notes when selecting your CIDR block:

    • The RFC 6598 shared address space is supported on Azure.
    • Must be a /16 CIDR block.
    • Cannot be modified after the Confluent Cloud network is provisioned.
    • Must not overlap with an existing Confluent Cloud network CIDR block.

Create a Confluent Cloud network

Follow the procedure below to create a Confluent Cloud network on Azure.

You can host multiple clusters within one Confluent Cloud network`. For details on service quotas, see Network.

  1. In the Confluent Cloud Console, go to the Network management page for your environment.

  2. Click Create your first network if this is the first network in your environment, or click + Add Network if your environment has existing networks.

  3. Select Azure as the Cloud Provider and the desired geographic region.

  4. Select the connectivity type: Private Link or VNet Peering. Depending on the option selected, different Zone Placement options and CIDR for Confluent Cloud Network fields will appear.

    • Private Link: Cluster is accessible using Private Link connections.
    • VNet Peering: Cluster is accessible using VNet Peering.
  5. Complete the steps for the connectivity type you selected and then click Continue.

    Important

    After provisioning your new Confluent Cloud network, you cannot change your selected Availability Zone (AZ) IDs or CIDR block size. Make sure to deploy a network based on your zonal requirements.

    1. Under DNS configuration, select the DNS resolution method.

      Select Private DNS Resolution to resolve the private DNS name of the Confluent Cloud cluster to the private IP address of the cluster.

      If Private DNS Resolution is not selected, the private DNS name of the Confluent Cloud cluster requires public DNS Resolution to resolve the private IP address of the cluster.

      Before you select a DNS resolution option, review the details about DNS resolution in Azure Private Link in DNS resolution options.

  6. Under Create Network, specify a Network Name, review your configuration, and click Create Network.


Typically, it takes up to 15 to 20 minutes to create a Confluent Cloud network. Note the Confluent Cloud network ID from the response to specify it in the following commands.

Next steps

After successfully provisioning the Confluent Cloud network on Azure, you can add Dedicated Kafka clusters within your Confluent Cloud network by using the following options: