Instaclustr is excited to announce the generally availability of AWS PrivateLink with our managed Apache Kafka offering.  This follows our announcement that this new feature was available in public preview mode some weeks ago. With this release, customers of Instaclustr for Apache Kafka running clusters on AWS can benefit from an simpler alternative to using VPC peering and transit gateways.

Without the use of AWS PrivateLink, most of our customers who need cross-VPC access would end up using VPC peering. However, for the majority of those customers’ use-cases, PrivateLink is now the better option—for example, if it’s desired that access to all resources in a VPC not be granted, if unidirectional access is required, if getting involved in network management is not desirable, and if CIDRs between VPCs overlap. 

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.

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

Enabling your new Instaclustr for Apache Kafka cluster to have PrivateLink support can now be done with a single click. This page provides information on how to set up your managed Kafka cluster to support PrivateLink, and 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. This will be made available in the coming weeks.

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