Partner Zones: Share Kafka Data with External Partners Without Replicating Clusters
Share Kafka streams with external partners through isolated access zones—no cluster duplication or complex replication required.
Sharing streaming data with external partners is painful. The traditional approach requires duplicating Kafka topics across dedicated clusters for each partner. This creates infrastructure sprawl, security headaches, and operational complexity that scales poorly.
Conduktor's Partner Zones solve this by providing isolated access zones within your existing Kafka infrastructure. Partners get controlled access to specific data streams without you spinning up additional clusters.
The Business Case for External Data Sharing
58% of organisations consider third-party data sharing critical for decision-making and partnerships. By 2026, Gartner predicts 30% of enterprises will prioritise secure data-sharing capabilities.
The benefits are clear:
- Faster decisions: Real-time insights enable immediate responses to market changes.
- AI/ML fuel: Shared data feeds models and enables co-creation with partners.
- Operational efficiency: Frictionless integrations reduce coordination overhead.
Why Batch Processing No Longer Works
Batch data sharing (nightly dumps, FTPs, ETL jobs) worked for decades. It cannot keep up with today's requirements.
Finance, retail, healthcare, and logistics now need:
- Real-time insights to outpace competitors
- Live, contextual data for AI models
- Continuous compliance monitoring
Streaming platforms like Kafka enable this. But sharing Kafka data externally introduces new operational challenges.
The Cluster Replication Problem
The traditional solution: duplicate Kafka topics across separate physical clusters, one per partner.
This approach creates three problems:
Infrastructure costs explode. Each partner requires dedicated Kafka clusters, multiplying operational expenses.
Operational complexity grows. Managing multiple clusters, access policies, networking, and replication creates administrative overhead that scales with partner count.
Security vulnerabilities multiply. More clusters mean more attack surface. Enforcing consistent security policies across environments becomes difficult.
How Partner Zones Work
Partner Zones within Conduktor Exchange provide isolated access to your Kafka data without cluster replication.
Isolated environments: Each partner gets a dedicated zone with tailored access controls. Your core systems remain protected.
Granular permissions: Control exactly which topics each partner can access. Set usage quotas and traffic policies to protect resources.
Automated onboarding: Generate ready-to-use connection instructions for partners. No manual configuration required.
Built-in data protection: Enforce encryption, masking, and tokenisation on data flowing to external partners. Sensitive fields stay protected.
Full visibility: Real-time monitoring, usage statistics, and audit logs provide complete transparency over partner interactions.
What This Means for Your Operations
Partner Zones eliminate the infrastructure sprawl of traditional approaches:
- No data duplication: Share streams directly from your existing clusters.
- Isolated access: Partners cannot reach your core systems.
- Centralised governance: One place to manage all partner access and compliance.
Get Started
Book a demo to see how Partner Zones enable secure external data sharing without the operational overhead of cluster replication.