Kong has announced the general availability of Kong Konnect, a cloud-native service connectivity platform designed to streamline the deployment and management of connected applications in the cloud era. Konnect offers an end-to-end service lifecycle delivered through a hybrid architecture, where the control plane is hosted as a cloud service and data planes can be deployed across various environments by customers. Key features include the Runtime Manager for managing data planes, the ServiceHub for cataloging and reusing services, and the Portal and Vitals for simplifying operations and providing analytics. Konnect aims to enhance the speed and efficiency of service deployment while reducing the operational burden on users, marking a significant step in Kong's cloud strategy. Existing customers and prospects are encouraged to explore Konnect to accelerate their service connectivity initiatives.