Kong unveils Premium Tech Partner Program and deals with Traceable & Confluent

Kong has announced the launch of its new Premium Technology Partner Program. The program aims to enhance the developer ecosystem by deepening Kong's engagement with technology partners and fostering innovation within its cloud and developer framework.

According to the announcement, the program builds on the success of Kong's existing community offerings. It is tailored specifically for integrations and plugins that leverage Kong's commercial products, particularly Kong Konnect and Kong Gateway Enterprise. This initiative ensures that partners can provide advanced solutions that meet the evolving needs of modern enterprises. Premium plugins under this program will undergo validation against Kong's latest software releases to ensure high-quality and reliable integrations for customers.

The inaugural kick-off of the program will feature Traceable AI, Dynatrace, and Confluent as the first partners. These companies will utilise the program to tackle common issues that their joint customers encounter, particularly in areas such as API security, observability, and data streaming.

Speaking on the partnership, Sanjay Nagaraj, Co-founder and CTO of Traceable AI, said, "This enhanced partnership between Kong and Traceable AI will certainly help our joint customers gain greater visibility into all their services and APIs, which continues to be a challenge for many enterprises. By integrating Kong Konnect Service Catalog with Traceable AI's API Security Platform, customers can achieve a comprehensive understanding of their environments, ensuring that all APIs and services are covered by the governance policies of an organisation."

Steve Tack, Chief Product Officer at Dynatrace, highlighted the benefits of the integration with Dynatrace's platform. "Through seamless integration with the Dynatrace platform, Kong customers will benefit from out-of-the-box observability and AI-powered insights that will allow them to gain a comprehensive, end-to-end overview of their entire API lifecycle. This integration empowers joint customers with detailed metrics and traces, enabling them to optimise their API infrastructure, enhance service quality, and drive innovation with confidence."

Paul Mac Farland, SVP of Partner and Innovation Ecosystem at Confluent, noted the importance of real-time data for businesses. "Businesses need trustworthy, real-time data at their fingertips to thrive in today's dynamic markets. Confluent's data streaming platform with unified, fully managed Apache Kafka and Apache Flink enables businesses to build highly reliable, scalable data products to fuel real-time applications and data-driven operations. Through the new integration of Confluent Cloud and Kong, organisations gain a secure, standardised API layer that unleashes developer productivity—providing seamless, secure access to data streams across the enterprise," he said.

Augusto Marietti, CEO and co-founder of Kong, articulated the strategic goals of the new program. "Our Premium Technology Partner Program aims to elevate the quality and reliability of plugins available to Kong customers, enriching the Kong API ecosystem with enterprise-grade solutions that drive greater and faster business value from real-time streaming to restful APIs. The program represents a significant investment in our partner ecosystem and underscores our commitment to delivering the highest quality of integrations to our users. By offering enhanced support and exclusive benefits, we are empowering our partners to innovate and succeed alongside Kong," he commented.

Customers will gain from Kong's expanded developer ecosystem, which will provide access to the latest technologies, more seamless integrations, high-quality support, and enhanced security. The program also introduces a streamlined pathway for community plugins to transition to the premium tier, acknowledging the contributions of existing partners and encouraging continuous improvement and innovation. Kong's initiative is in line with a broader industry trend towards more collaborative and integrated technology ecosystems.

The Premium Technology Partner Program, which kicks off at Kong's annual API Summit, already includes three key partners in its inaugural tier and expects to onboard new partners over the coming quarters. This initiative is projected to significantly improve Kong's offering, promoting both innovation and value for its global customer base.