Instaclustr is pleased to announce a Public Preview release of AWS PrivateLink support for our managed Apache Kafka. With this release, customers of Instaclustr for Apache Kafka running clusters on AWS can now benefit from a simpler alternative to using VPC peering and transit gateways. Please note that Public Preview releases are not covered by our standard SLAs and are not recommended for production purposes.

Prior to the release of this feature, most of our customers needing to access their cluster via Private IPs used VPC peering. Now, for many of those customers’ use-cases, PrivateLink will be the better option. The advantages of using PrivateLink include removing the need to manage CIDR ranges to avoid overlap between different VPCs and removing any route from the cluster VPC to the client VPC for improved security.

Our AWS PrivateLink feature is offered as an Enterprise Feature. Our Enterprise Features and  Enterprise Add-ons attract an additional charge of 20% on top of the node cost, for the first such feature or add-on enabled by you. For Run In Instaclustr Account (RIIA) customers, this charge would cover the AWS PrivateLink costs and all other costs associated with us enabling PrivateLink support for you. Run In Your Own Account (RIYOA) customers should also be aware that using PrivateLink may result in additional AWS infrastructure charges. Information on charges from AWS is available here.

For those who’d like to read more about AWS PrivateLink, this page contains more information. In short, PrivateLink is defined by AWS as a feature that allows “private connectivity between VPCs and services hosted on AWS or on-premises, without exposing data to the internet”.

Enabling your new Instaclustr for the Apache Kafka cluster to have PrivateLink support can now be done with a single additional click. This page provides information on how to set up your managed Kafka cluster to support PrivateLink while this one has details on how to set up your own environment to connect to it. For existing clusters, we’re developing a process for migrating to PrivateLink which will be made available in the coming weeks.

Please feel free to reach out to our support team should you need more information.