Extending Data Compliance & Security to the Data Warehouse
Posted by Matt Benati on Fri, Jul 16, 2010
Netezza recently held its annual users conference, Enzee Universe, in Boston. It was a great week filled with a ton of information ranging from current product deep dives, to customers sharing their successes and needs, to investigating the intelligent economy. More and more we see data-rich companies turning to data warehouse appliances (DWA), like Netezza’s TwinFin appliance, to provide high-end analytics. They see these large data stores as strategic assets that hold the key to business success. The data is important, but the analysis is critical. As one large retail customer said to me, "Without analytics, information is just noise."
This year we also showcased the Mantra data compliance and security appliance to our data warehouse community. Its mission in life is to provide deep data auditing capabilities to be used to meet compliance requirements and protect sensitive information. Considered a database activity monitoring technology, Mantra watches all access to data warehouses, transactional databases, and file systems, and determines if the communication poses a threat or is relevant to one or more regulations. Gartner Research recently published a Release Note, Ten Database Activities Enterprises Need to Monitor, that details the importance of database activity monitoring. Specifically, one of Gartner's key findings is, "The use of structured data storage, and the amount of data stored in this way, are increasing rapidly. This trend is largely driven by data analytics requirements and consolidation efforts." If our customers are any indication, Gartner's observation is on the money.
Data warehouses are a natural part of the intelligent economy because they turn your critical information into actionable recommendations - even predictive recommendations. As more emphasis and resources are placed on data analytics, these systems are becoming more and more strategic. This trend is driving companies to increase controls at the data warehouse. In addition to using database activity monitoring for compliance and security needs (Verizon's 2009 Data Security Breach Investigations Report states that databases account for 75% of all stolen data records), companies simply need visibility into who is accessing or changing their critical data warehouses. Over the past few months we've been contacted by multiple companies asking for help after an employee made a seemingly innocuous change that resulted in unplanned downtime. This is an interesting data availability use case and one we want to know more about ...
What visibility, compliance and security needs do you have for your data warehouses and transactional databases?