HELSINKI, Finland — September 11, 2019-Aiven, a leading cloud technology startup providing a portfolio of managed database and stream processing products, announced today the company will now offer Apache Kafka Connect as a service. Featuring enhanced extensibility, Aiven’s Kafka Connect will allow customers to define and configure connectors that reliably and scalably stream data between different systems.

Aiven for Apache Kafka currently supports over 20 open-source Apache Kafka Connect connectors, the most of any managed service provider. Aiven’s Apache Kafka platform is an essential component of a scalable, low-latency data pipeline due to its ability to stream messages between various systems. The platform accomplishes this by utilizing Kafka Connect to integrate with those systems.

As a component of Apache Kafka, Apache Kafka Connect provides customers with a standard application programming interface for integration without the hassle of handling maintenance. Through supporting Kafka Connect, Aiven makes easy integration between systems possible and trivial to set up.

By integrating Apache Kafka Connect as a Service, businesses will be able to run the connector as a standalone process or as a distributed, fault-tolerant service supporting an entire organization - allowing each channel to scale and work independently.

Aiven’s Apache Kafka Connect Service will allow organizations to scale up to a large, centrally managed service supporting an entire organization or scale down to development, testing, and small production deployments.

“Organizations are constantly looking for ways to leverage and extend existing connectors to manage data and decrease time to production,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO of Aiven. “In the past, customers needed to run larger Aiven for Apache Kafka plans to be able to use Apache Kafka Connect, which wasn't optimal. By providing Apache Kafka Connect as a service, users will be able to scale Kafka Connect separately and see more consistent, higher performance from their primary Kafka workloads.”

In addition, Apache Kafka Connect offers automatic offset management. Harnessing small amounts of information from connectors, Apache Kafka Connect can manage the offset commit process automatically.

This allows businesses to focus on their operations without being concerned with this error prone part of connector development. By managing all aspects of Apache Kafka Connect, Aiven will enable businesses to scale down, from development to testing, with a low barrier to entry and low operational overhead.

“At Aiven, we strive to offer new services and platforms to provide unmatched support and offer a digestible, easy-to-use experience,” noted Saarenmaa. “We are thrilled to be the first to offer Apache Kafka Connect as a separate service.”

To learn more about Apache Kafka Connect, visit https://aiven.io/kafka.

About Aiven

Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and with offices in Boston, Berlin, and Sydney, Aiven is an ISO 27001 certified, SOC 2 compliant cloud data platform provider, operating managed open-source database, event streaming, cache, search, and graphing solutions for over 500 customers worldwide.

You can visit https://aiven.io for more information or follow Aiven on Twitter: @aiven_io.