OKERA: Centralized, Simplified, and Scaled Data Access Control

As additional users and tasks are added to the data lake, security and governance become more important—and, in many circumstances, a hurdle for data scientists and analysts who want to utilize data to gain a competitive edge and innovate in their businesses. Failure to secure sensitive data comes with a significant price tag, which can include regulatory fines, reputational harm, and even a direct loss of consumers. Okera allows data platform teams to deliver safe data access at scale, meet organizational governance needs, and enable self-service data analytics, all while increasing data lake usage and acceptance and ensuring its success inside the enterprise. To comply with data security and privacy requirements, Okera dynamically approves and audits each query. Okera works in the cloud, on-premises, and with cloud-native and legacy technologies to easily integrate into the infrastructure. For complete data lake visibility, collect metadata from a variety of sources, such as object storage and relational databases.

Although GDPR, CCPA, and other comparable requirements may cause concern among data-driven companies attempting to create individualized consumer experiences, they should be regarded as a chance to adapt for the future. Customers’ sensitive information must be protected in order to develop trust and brand loyalty, and businesses must have a genuinely contemporary infrastructure that can expand and handle current and future requirements. Access controls are enforced dynamically and uniformly across all analytics tools on the Okera platform, allowing for the governance of petabyte-scale data lakes. Accelerate and simplify the route to a data platform that meets regulatory requirements quickly and places data protection at the forefront of its design. Cloud computing and sophisticated analytics are attractive to businesses because they provide cost reductions, flexibility, and new business options. At the same time, they must ensure that their sensitive data is protected. Cloud suppliers’ built-in access control solutions are seldom comprehensive enough to meet all of an organization’s demands, especially when a data breach has such severe effects.

For all relevant stakeholders, the Okera platform unifies and actively controls data access across hybrid and multi-cloud, multi-storage, and multi-tool systems, minimizing the friction between data governance and business agility. All data lake owners want to make their lake better—whether it’s by making it safer and more compliant, optimizing for speed and cost, or assisting data consumers with onboarding new apps and datasets. From the data platform team to the data governance team, all stakeholders require actionable information regarding the data lake’s activity: which users and tools are using it, and whether there is any compliance risk owing to the volume and categories of sensitive data accessible. Okera Spotlight aids in the resolution of this issue by automatically detecting sensitive data and recording behaviour across various analytics tools. For a comprehensive view of data lake activities, it gives relevant information and crucial indicators such as top users and top apps.

Okera’s capabilities with Amazon Web Services (AWS) have also been increased, with new connectors and product versions allowing clients to get the most out of their AWS investment. Okera for Amazon EMR, Okera’s first platform-specific version, enables users to secure private, personally identifiable, and regulated data stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and processed on Amazon EMR’s vast scalability. Okera for Snowflake, which was announced earlier this month and will be publicly accessible only on AWS in early 2022, will be the second platform-specific edition. “We are always excited to expand our support of AWS technologies and make it easier for enterprises to build the future of their business on AWS,” said Nick Halsey, Okera CEO. “The Okera platform makes it even easier to access data for innovation and growth while ensuring accurate, comprehensive data governance and regulatory compliance.”

The Okera platform solves the most difficult challenges around data access and governance in hybrid and multi-cloud settings, allowing an organization to unleash the power of the data like never before. Okera’s goal is to combine self-service analytics with ethical data access so that everyone in the organization may benefit from the power of data.