What's new in Redpanda Cloud: A simpler Serverless now on GCP, & more

If you’ve stopped by our website lately, you might have noticed things look a little different. (We think the new look is pretty sharp!) But it's not just a new coat of paint. It’s the visual identity for our core mission: to build the Redpanda Agentic Data Plane (Redpanda ADP).

This new era requires a new kind of data platform — one that’s not just real-time, but simple, efficient, interoperable, and safe enough to power the next generation of AI and agentic applications. We’re shipping a powerful set of features designed to help you build, operate, and govern these new applications safely at enterprise scale.

But to kick things off, Redpanda Serverless takes center stage, helping you take an even shorter path from idea to impact with a new onboarding UX, availability on GCP, and more. Let's dive in!

A new "getting started" flow for Redpanda Serverless

The first steps with any data management tool boil down to three questions:

1. How do I get data in?
2. How do I get data out?
3. Does it work with what I already have?

The new onboarding flow in Redpanda Serverless is designed to address all three for newcomers and power users alike. Instead of dropping you into a blank YAML editor plus a link to the docs, you now get a guided, wizard-based experience that walks you through every step of creating a real pipeline

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It's all about "time to wow!" — that critical moment when you see your own data streaming in and out of your cluster. Regardless of your Apache Kafka^® expertise, the new UX is designed for two key groups:

• For developers new to streaming: It's a form-based experience. You pick an input (like postgres_cdc or aws_s3) and an output (like redpanda or gcp_bigquery), and Redpanda Cloud helps you create the topic, user, and permissions needed to make it work. It replaces the complex YAML-first model with a simple, task-oriented flow.
• For power users: We see you! You can enter an advanced flow by picking your language SDK of choice (Java, Python, Node.js, Go) for pre-populated boilerplate snippets. Or, if you live in vim and find that these kinds of templates slow you down, you can skip the flow entirely and jump straight into the topics details and YAML editor you already know via the custom option. Simple for new users, powerful for experts.

For a step-by-step example, the Redpanda Connect Quickstart guide in docs now features the new onboarding flow. Try it out with a free trial of Redpanda Serverless.

Redpanda Serverless on GCP (beta)

Good news, Google Cloud fans! You can now spin up Redpanda Serverless in us‑central1. It’s the easiest way to get from “we should stream this” to a running cluster — without a platform team ticket.

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This is the ultimate simple streaming experience. You get a Kafka-compatible endpoint in seconds, pay only for what you use, and never think about brokers, clusters, or scaling. For developers, this means no more waiting for infrastructure. You can sign up directly and start building today. For platform leaders, it means you can offer a fully-managed, cost-efficient streaming option to your teams on GCP, just as you can on AWS.

Speaking of AWS: When you first log in to your new serverless account, you'll find a welcome cluster that has already been created for you, and it exists on AWS in us-east-1. To use the Google Cloud beta, be sure to head to the top-level Clusters section in the menu panel, where you'll be able to find Google Cloud and us-central1 as an option. Happy streaming!
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Google Cloud Marketplace support will become available soon. The beta is available today for direct signups via redpanda.com.

AI agents in Redpanda Cloud: Remote MCP servers (beta)

Building and managing a scalable, secure MCP server was a complex project. Until now.

We’ve made building this AI backbone as simple as building a data pipeline. You can now use a Redpanda Cloud-hosted Redpanda Connect pipeline and automatically and securely expose it as an MCP server.

Let's unpack that statement: You can take a low‑code Redpanda Connect pipeline, flip it into “MCP mode,” and Redpanda Cloud exposes it as a secure, fully managed MCP server for your agents (Claude, internal orchestrators, you name it). Hundreds of pre-built sources and sinks, an in‑browser inspector, and lifecycle management are all built in. That's what the new Remote MCP section in Redpanda Cloud is all about, and it can radically simplify development.

What does it mean for your organization? Well, agents are only useful when they can responsibly touch the systems that run your business. Remote MCP on Redpanda Cloud gives agents governed, contextual access to operational systems — with line‑of‑sight auditability. It's the first step in our Redpanda ADP vision, so you can expose the right tools, with the right guardrails, fast.

We wrote about remote MCP in more detail in this post: Building low-code MCP servers in Redpanda Cloud. Check out the blog, or dive deeper in the docs!

Connect all the things! New Redpanda Connect components

Our list of 300+ connectors is how we deliver a truly interoperable platform. This release adds some new components, all available now in Redpanda Cloud.

• Microsoft SQL Server CDC input: Our new SQL Server CDC input is your playbook for low-risk modernization. We covered it recently, but for Microsoft shops it's a fast, efficient way to modernize legacy databases for the age of event-driven microservices.

• Jira processor (Experimental): The Jira processor connects your real-time data directly to your human business processes. Now, you can build pipelines that automatically create, update, or transition Jira issues based on data streams — think "create a P0 incident" from an error topic or "close ticket" when a transaction completes. Combine it with our MCP configuration for Redpanda Connect and safely provide agents with deeper business context

• CyborgDB output: Add an extra layer of protection to your RAG pipelines with our new CyborgDB output. CyborgDB is the first Confidential Vector Database for the enterprise, providing a specialized encryption proxy for your existing vector stores.

The fastest way to try Redpanda Connect is on Serverless. Sign up today for a free trial! 

Automate Schema Governance with Terraform

We've just expanded our official Redpanda Terraform Provider. You can now manage Schema Registry ACLs as code using the new redpanda_schema_registry_acl resource. This is a huge win for platform teams. You can enforce who can read, write, or delete specific schemas, all through your GitOps workflows. It makes your security policies auditable, repeatable, and fully automated.

Learn more about the Terraform Provider for Redpanda Cloud in our docs.

What's next?

To recap, here's what you should try next in Redpanda Cloud:

• Kick the serverless tires on GCP: Spin up Redpanda Serverless in us‑central1 and stream real traffic before lunch. Start free, and pay as you go from there.

• Ship an agent you can trust: Turn a Redpanda Connect pipeline into a Remote MCP server and hand your agent a real, governed tool. Try it with Jira for incident flows or CyborgDB for added security in your RAG workflows.

• Try the new onboarding flow: Connect to your own data and create your first Redpanda Connect pipeline by letting our handy-dandy new wizard guide the way.

Redpanda is the data streaming platform for the agentic era. Our job is to give you the shortest, safest path from idea to impact — simple to operate, efficient at scale, interoperable with your stack, and safe by design. Spin up Serverless and try it today, or get started with Redpanda Cloud in AWS Marketplace.