Confluent has just announced a new managed service for Apache Flink to help make it easier for customers to create data streams.

Stream processing is a technology that allows data professionals to utilize data as it arrives instead of working on older data that has already been processed. It is needed for uses like fraud detection, predictive maintenance, and real-time inventory and supply chain management, according to Confluent.

Flink is commonly used to support stream processing workloads, but according to the company, getting started can mean dealing with challenges such as upfront costs, ongoing maintenance efforts, and needing to deal with the complexities associated with it. 

Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink will enable users to get started quickly with added support from Confluent through integrated monitoring, security, and governance. It features a 99.999% uptime SLA and is currently available through AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. 

“Stream processing allows organizations to transform raw streams of data into powerful insights,” said Shaun Clowes, chief product officer at Confluent. “Flink’s high performance, low latency, and strong community make it the best choice for developers to use for stream processing. With Kafka and Flink fully integrated in a unified platform, Confluent removes the technical barriers and provides the necessary tools so organizations can focus on innovating instead of infrastructure management.”