Easy, Seamless Hybrid Cloud Cluster Linking with Confluent 7.1

This post introduces Cluster Linking as a generally available feature in Confluent Platform 7.1 and Confluent Cloud. It details how Cluster Linking provides a secure, seamless, and built-in solution for hybrid cloud data replication by mirroring data, topic configuration, and consumer offsets between on-premises and cloud clusters. The post highlights key benefits such as seamless transitions for consumer applications, enhanced security through source-initiated connections, reliability in unstable network conditions, scalability, and ease of use via CLI/REST API commands. It provides a practical example of creating a source-initiated cluster link from on-premises to Confluent Cloud, including configuration details and commands for creating mirror topics.