IBM Delivers Secure Hadoop in Analytics Cloud

IBM has steadily been expanding its interest in cloud computing and Big Data. IBM Cloud Infrastructure for Analytics, its cloud-based offering designed to ease the investment burden of implementing on-premises Big Data solutions, is gaining tracton. And, IBM is also focusing more on Hadoop, the red hot open source data crunching platform.

For organizations wanting to run data sets and perform quick data analytics without having to use statistical software packages, IBM Cloud Infrastructure for Analytics offers a secure, cloud-based analytics platform that is now backed by a feature called Secure Hadoop. Secure Hadoop protects data that is moving to and from a cloud platform and data at rest, which gets encrypted and remains protected when moved to IBM's SoftLayer object storage or the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).

According to an IBM advisory:

Some of the exceptional aspects of Secure Hadoop are listed below.

• End-to-end data protection
• Data in Motion: data secured moving to/from the cloud
• Data at Rest: data encrypted at the enterprise and remains encrypted in SoftLayer object storage and the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
• Data resulting from Hadoop Analytics process can be encrypted as it is stored in HDFS. It can then be securely transferred to the enterprise via object storage.
• Supports regulatory compliance. Government certified FIPS 140-2 validated security algorithm that includes AES-256 encryption
• Integrated Key Management (synchronized with an Enterprise controlled Key Caching Server for the Hadoop cluster to gain key access)

These innovative features of Secure Hadoop mean your data is: secured to and from the cloud, data in SoftLayer object storage is always secure, data resulting from Hadoop Analytics process can be encrypted and exported to object store for secure transfer, and security keys are controlled by the client. The Secure Connector for Hadoop appliance uploads and downloads data directly to Object Storage, and there is no need to develop and maintain APIs nor is there a need to change existing infrastructure.

 IBM has delivered some compelling supporting material for Secure Hadoop and its analytics offerings. You can check out a 20 minute video series on Secure Hadoop for more information (link here). You can also read a blog post on securing the Spark framework natively. (link). And you can download a Solution Brief PDF file on IBM Cloud Infrastructure for Analytics (here).

"Secure Hadoop facilitates more secure migration of data with encryption and patented cryptographic splitting, supports regulatory compliance using a government-certified encryption algorithm, and provides enterprise control over data access with encryption keys," notes IBM's advisory.