Cloudera Adds BlueTalon To List of Big Data Security Partners

Cloudera continues to line up partners to help it secure big data solutions with its Hadoop-based data management platform. The security startup has most recently teamed up with BlueTalon, tapping the BlueTalon Policy Engine to deliver integrated big data security on CDH, Cloudera’s Hadoop distribution.

This follows a partnership Cloudera unveiled in July to validate the Security Intelligence Platform from Niara to work with Cloudera Enterprise, the company’s big data management system. BlueTalon provides data-centric security solutions for Hadoop, SQL and big data environments, providing more control over data access and distribution.

The integration of the BlueTalon Policy Engine with Cloudera Enterprise will provide a number of improvements to how data is managed and accessed on the Hadoop-based platform, which provides a single data-management solution for big-data environments, Cloudera said in a press release.

Adding BlueTalon to the mix gives enterprises the ability to control and audit what data users can use, use and modify across Hadoop, enterprise SQL data stores and other data sources, the company said.

Specifically, the integration of the policy engine with Cloudera’s solution will provide fine-grained access control at the row, column, cell or partial cell levels, as well as dynamically mask data and allow users to use sensitive data in queries without revealing what that data is, according to Cloudera.

It also will provision precise data access by enabling role- and purpose-based data access policies to be authored from a central, user-friendly graphical user interface, according to Cloudera.

The addition of the BlueTalon Policy Engine also means companies can enforce consistent data access policies across users, applications and data repositories, as well audit data access to ensure compliance with industry regulations such as HIPAA and PCI, the company said.

Companies also can now spot anomalous data requests before data leaks occur, a key feature of the engine’s integration with Cloudera, said BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius in the release. “With compromised user accounts now the leading source for data breaches, it’s more important than ever for enterprises to authorize users to access the exact data they need, and not a byte more,” he said.

Overall the partnership is in line with Cloudera’s aim to work with customers to provide them with a big data management platform that ticks all the boxes for security and compliance, said Tim Stevens, vice president of Business and Corporate Development at Cloudera, in the release.

“BlueTalon enables Cloudera customers to harness the full power of Cloudera Enterprise while keeping sensitive data safe and ensuring regulatory compliance,” he said.