# Register a Self-Managed Connect Cluster with USM To monitor and govern a self-managed Connect cluster in Confluent Cloud, register it with Unified Stream Manager (USM). The connected Kafka cluster acts as the metadata cluster for Connect. A self-managed Connect cluster can produce to and consume from either a Confluent Platform Kafka cluster or a Confluent Cloud Kafka cluster. New to USM? Start with the [Unified Stream Manager overview](../overview.md#cloud-usm-overview) to learn what USM is and how it connects your self-managed environment to Confluent Cloud. #### WARNING Before you register your Kafka Connect cluster, ensure that sensitive values, such as secrets and credentials, are configured only in properties of type `PASSWORD`. This applies to all connectors on that cluster. For USM, the Connect runtime masks configuration values of type `PASSWORD` before it sends them as part of the connector metadata to Confluent Cloud. To find which configuration options are of type `PASSWORD`, see [Self-Managed Connectors for Confluent Platform](https://docs.confluent.io/platform/current/connect/kafka_connectors.html) for specific connectors. ## Choose your metadata cluster type * [Confluent Platform Kafka as the Metadata Cluster](platform-kafka.md#register-connect). Your Connect cluster produces to and consumes from a self-managed Confluent Platform Kafka cluster that’s already registered with USM. * [Confluent Cloud Kafka as the Metadata Cluster](cloud-kafka.md#register-connect-cloud). Your Connect cluster produces to and consumes from a Confluent Cloud Kafka cluster directly. ## Related content * [Unified Stream Manager in Confluent Cloud](../overview.md#cloud-usm-overview) * [Private Networking for USM](../register/usm-network-overview.md#usm-network-overview) * [Configure a Service Account for the USM Agent](../register/usm-service-account.md#usm-sa) * [Deploy the USM Agent](../register/deploy-agent.md#usm-agent) * [Monitor Confluent Platform Connectors with USM](../monitor/connectors.md#platform-connectors) * [Monitor Self-Managed Connectors Running Against Confluent Cloud Kafka](../monitor/connectors-cloud-kafka.md#platform-connectors-cloud) * [Deregister a Connect cluster](deregister.md#usm-deregister-connect)