Confluent Cloud, a managed event streaming service powered by Apache Kafka, now supports AWS PrivateLink for secure network connectivity, enhancing its existing options like VPC peering and AWS Transit Gateway. This move enables users to establish one-way secure connections from their AWS VPCs to Confluent Cloud Dedicated clusters without the complexity of IP address coordination required by VPC peering. PrivateLink offers a streamlined approach to secure connectivity, allowing enterprises to minimize network attack vectors and protect resources. While VPC peering allows mutual network access, PrivateLink ensures a one-way connection, reducing the network's surface area. Confluent has updated its infrastructure to facilitate the self-service setup of PrivateLink endpoints, making it easier for customers to quickly deploy and connect clusters securely. The announcement coincides with the release of Confluent Platform 7.7, which includes features like OAuth support and integration with Apache Flink, alongside a new connector and OpenSearch Ingestion for Amazon OpenSearch integration.