News

Cloudera Releases Hadoop Security Module

• By David Ramel
• July 25, 2013

Apache Hadoop developers working with SQL query engines can now rely on a new security tool from Cloudera Inc. that reportedly provides the granularity to secure data access from most SQL and business intelligence (BI) tools and scenarios.

The Apache Hadoop-based software and services provider yesterday introduced Sentry, an authorization framework that provides fine-grained access security.

The offering comes on the heels of a study indicating that security is not a top concern among developers.

Data access--defining the permissions of authenticated users and applications--was the last of the four "functional areas of information security" that needed to be addressed in the Hadoop arena, the Palo Alto-based company said. The other three areas are perimeter, data and visibility, all of which had been previously addressed by developments in the Hadoop community and by integration of solution providers.

Cloudera said the independent security module works with the Apache Hive and Cloudera Impala open source SQL query engines. "Sentry delivers advanced authorization controls to enable multi-user applications and cross-functional processes for enterprise datasets," the company said. "This level of granular control, available for the first time in Hadoop, is imperative to meet enterprise Role Based Access Control (RBAC) requirements of highly regulated industries, like healthcare, financial services and government."

According to company information, database administrators can unlock RBAC requirements to specify the available actions of users and applications at the server, database, table and view levels. For example, Sentry provides SELECT privileges on views and tables, INSERT privileges on tables, TRANSFORM privileges on servers and ALL privileges on all of the above. Those producing content can now intersperse sensitive and non-sensitive data in the same set. Sentry also helps comply with regulatory mandates--such as those in healthcare--and opens up Hadoop data systems to more users, Cloudera said.

Sentry is available for free download as an add-on for version 4.3 of Cloudera's Distribution Including Apache Hadoop (CDH). Extensive documentation is available here.