Big Data – Big Help or Big Risk?

By Andy Thurai (Twitter: @AndyThurai)

[Original shorter version of this article appeared on PW http://tiny.cc/gbiczw]

As promised in my last blog “Big Data, API, and IoT …..Newer technologies protected by older security” here is a deep dive on Big Data security and how to effortlessly secure Big Data effectively.

It is an unfortunate fact that like other open source models, Hadoop has followed a similar path in that it hasn’t focused that much on security.  “Project Rhino”, an Apache Hadoop security project initiative spearheaded by Intel is aimed at correcting the inherent deficits that previously made Hadoop an untenable solution for security conscious enterprises.

In order to effectively use Big Data, it needs to be secured properly. However if you try to force fit everything into an older security model with older security tools, you will undoubtedly end up compromising more than you think.

QCON NY 2013

I had a speaking opportunity at QCON in Big Apple last week.

As usual Big Data and Mobility were the dominating topics in this conference. Surprisingly, there was a strong html5 presence as well. At least ten presentations (including mine) were based on html5 or other modern language themes, which means the momentum is shifting from native apps to html 5 fast. It is not about just plain vanilla JavaScript anymore.

One thing I can vouch for is that the development crowd seems to be getting younger and sharper on a daily basis.

Ole for APIs…

Video of my speech from API Days Madrid here.  It starts after the first minute after Guillaume finishes his Q&A.

For the first time in my life, I was in Spain (Madrid) last week. What a lovely country and people. Great food too! It amazes me how people can speak multiple languages and entertain the clueless tourists like me by switching to English so quickly :).

In any case, I was there to attend the API Mediterranean event. Can you believe that? This is proof that API has gone to the nook and corner of the world! It was attended by about 100 practitioners. The representative companies included Intel, Kin Lane the API evangelist, WSO2, 3Scale, Layer 7, FaberNovel, API Cultur, Webshell.io, MailJet, and many more. The enthusiasm and eagerness from participants were undeniable. Eduardo was a great host.