The need for security and governance around big-data grows daily. As more data is generated, companies and governments need to establish strong frameworks for how they will secure their data. Storage providers like Hortonworks and Cloudera are increasing the security offered by their platforms, while companies are also implementing third party solutions to layer on top of the native security offered by storage vendors. At the same time, governments are wrestling with how to govern around the sharing of data that crosses state boundaries at rapid speeds and frequencies.
As businesses get more serious about using cloud computing they’re also getting more concerned about security.
…This demand is leading to growth in cloud security tools, which monitor data moving to and from the cloud and between cloud platforms. For example, tools that aim to identify fraudulent use of data in the cloud, unauthorised downloads, and malware in the cloud.
–Steve Ranger, ZDNet—
Big data’s inherent insecurity, however, is leading vendors to invest more, and get paid more, for remedying the situation. Hortonworks CEO Rob Bearden called out security as a key differentiator in his company’s offerings on a recent earnings call: “We also enhanced [our] security and data science capabilities. And now all of these capabilities and functionality [are] delivered on our core multi-tenancy engine with integrated security and governance platform.”
…Unlike Hortonworks, however, Cloudera pushes the security envelope with a hybrid model that mixes open source and its own proprietary software. Reilly also declared: “It’s our proprietary software that delivers enterprise grade data governance, compliance, management, and security including encryption and key management, as well as platform as a service cloud offerings.”
Whether one believes the right way to improve big data security is through open source or proprietary software, it’s fantastic that vendors are finally taking it seriously. Actually, that’s not fair—Hortonworks and Cloudera, among others, have long taken security seriously. What was missing was enterprise willingness to pay for that security. This gap seems to be resolving itself, to the betterment of enterprise security, not to mention the bank balances of the big data vendors.
-Matt Asay, Tech Republic—
Embarrassing leaks, careful denials and endless lawsuits will continue to shape the awkward efforts of policymakers to find common ground around issues like cyberespionage, defence of common networks and the sharing of personal data with law enforcement. Cyberattacks with the aim of disrupting government operations or influencing election campaigns will add still further pressures. These will all serve as a noisy backdrop to a related but separate debate over how commercial firms should exploit the opportunities of global networks and ‘big data’ analytics while protecting national interests and privacy.
Yet, setting common guidelines for commercial data transmission and storage remains crucial both to protect the goods and services that already depend on sophisticated data-gathering and analysis, and to support the next generation of productivity gains and business opportunities
-Dr. Christopher Smart, Chatham House
Between vendors like Cloudera and Hortonworks, and third party data security providers, the race to who will get data security ‘right’ first presents a huge market opportunity to appeal to firms that may be slow to move to the cloud for fears of security weaknesses. At the same time, all of these vendors will have to navigate the growing legislation around cloud security to ensure that they are providing the best solution for their clients.
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