Data Lake – Is it the future for Big Data?

Data Lake is a new storage concept that is gaining ground in the Cloud. Often the Data Lake term is being used as part of the Big Data solution. In theory, it is where you can store raw data in its native format, usually in Hadoop and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). It can be used and processed to create data sets for other applications and users as and when needed. You don’t worry about the complex (and often expensive) data pipeline needed to simply collect and store diverse data.

The credit for coining the term Data Lake goes to James Dixon, Pentaho Chief Technology Officer. Dixon used the term initially to contrast with “data mart”, which is a smaller repository of interesting attributes extracted from the raw data.

Read more

Risk Based Authentication In Cloud

At the time when data theft is rampant in the cyber world, it’s necessary to stem the growing uneasiness among users about the security and protection of their personal data. The reason for this breach is the password thefts. Once a hacker gets hold of a password, it can be used to access any of the victims online accounts, resulting in privacy and security being compromised.

One way to overcome this security breach is to have a strong risk based authentication process in place. Also known as multi factor authentication, it is an access control method that adds layers of identity verification to ensure only authorized users gain network access.

Read more

Does Your Business Have Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans?

The terms Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR or BC/DR) are confused quite often. Both are interrelated and its necessary for organizations to make these plans together instead of making them separately. This is a condition given that, both describe how prepared an organization is on recovering from an unforeseen event or disaster (manmade or natural).

When a disaster strikes, it’s important to know how your plans for recovering from the data loss and facilities, will help you. It’s understanding the difference between the two plans. Both Amazon and Microsoft Azure have features which facilitate in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans.

Read more