Enables GDPR and CCPA compliance with first granular access control for both structured and unstructured data on Microsoft Azure Data Lakes
Okera a leading active data management company for data lake security and governance, today announced it has expanded support for its award-winning data access management platform to include Microsoft Azure Data Lakes based on Microsoft Azure. Currently in use at Fortune 500 companies.
Okera’s solution for unified data lake security and governance alleviates one of the most complex data management challenges data stewards and owners face today by providing a unique ability to deliver granular access control for both structured and unstructured data at the user, role, file, column, row, and even cell levels. It brings enterprise-class security, governance, and compliance capabilities to help Azure Data Lake customers stay ahead of current and emerging data regulations including GDPR and CCPA.
Okera also makes life easier for data consumers by providing a unified data access platform that enables fast and secure access to data from multiple kinds of compute and analytic engines including BI tools, big data frameworks, and machine learning tools.
“As organizations increasingly implement multi-cloud and hybrid strategies, additional challenges around access control and governance also emerge,” observed Paige Bartley, Senior Analyst for Data, AI & Analytics, at 451 Research. “Okera’s support for Microsoft Azure acknowledges the growing importance of public clouds and provides customers additional flexibility to consistently secure and govern data at scale wherever it may reside, for use cases such as compliance.” Okera supports multiple data sources including Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) and Generation 2 (ADLS Gen2), Azure SQL Databases, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse — as well as other data sources that run on Azure including Snowflake and Apache HDFS. The technical benefits of Okera’s Active Data Access Platform include:
- Simplified access and a centralized view of data through an active schema registry and collaborative workspaces. Data can be accessed from any source, using any tool.
- Scalable protection through fine-grained access control and data obfuscation including anonymization, pseudonymization (tokenization), and redaction, with the ability to control access at the row, column, and cell levels.
- Easy policy assignment at scale with attribute-based access control.
- Greater visibility and auditability so data usage can be monitored down to the cell level.
“To remain competitive and innovative, there’s no question enterprises need the agility to move quickly, yet safely, to take advantage of the value of data that exists within their data lakes,” said Amandeep Khurana, Okera co-founder and CEO. “They simply cannot be a data-driven organization if they are constrained by how the organization can access, govern, and use data at scale. Forward-thinking enterprises realize investing in a proven platform like Azure provides the trusted scale and security confidence that’s critical. However, governing and securing the actual use of the data is a different and extremely complex problem, which is what Okera is here to solve.”
Okera is a technology-agnostic layer that exists between data lakes and any connected analytics tool or framework. As a result, Okera facilitates provisioning, access, governance and auditing of data across multi-data format and multi-tool environments. Okera ensures data platform teams maintain data protection at scale while data scientists and analysts achieve faster time to access, eliminating the trade-off between agility and governance.
Paul Maher, General Manager, Industry Experiences at Microsoft said, “As businesses across industries are accelerating their adoption of data lakes in the public clouds, Okera’s unified platform to manage access control at different granularities for both structured and unstructured data will help Microsoft Azure Data Lake customers get more value out of their data, faster while staying ahead of regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.”
Learn more at www.okera.com and contact sales@okera.com to request a demo.
About Okera
Okera enables the management of data access and governance at scale for today’s modern cloud data lakes. Built on the belief that companies can do more with their data, Okera’s Active Data Access Platform (ODAP) enables scalable fine-grained data protection and visibility on data lakes for both structured and unstructured data. This allows agility and governance to co-exist and gives data consumers, owners and stewards the confidence to unlock the power of their data for innovation and growth. Enterprise organizations receive immediate value from Okera which can be implemented and deployed in less than a day. Okera is headquartered in San Francisco and is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Capital One Growth Ventures. Learn more at www.okera.com or contact us at info@okera.com.
