Is Securing Connectivity to Various Data Sources Part of Your Data Governance Program?

Progress DataDirect OpenAccess SDK helps your data governance program adhere to security and privacy requirements.

It’s no secret that organizations hold a lot of data on us. So much so, that along with their analytics programs, they know what you want for your birthday even before your family. But that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all. Between strict data privacy and security laws popping up all over the world, and the absolute expectation from your customers that you are using their data in a secure and ethical way, organizations must ensure the software they use adheres to their data governance programs.

With the influx of data and the security laws in mind, I would like to introduce you to the DataDirect OpenAccess SDK—a database connector development kit that enables custom drivers for any data source to be developed within weeks while helping you to adhere to security and privacy requirements. Whether the data source is a proprietary file format or a API, OpenAccess SDK can be used to make it SQL-accessible from any ODBC, JDBC or ADO.NET compliant application.

But what about security, you ask? We’ve also seen financial service enterprises as well as independent software vendors using OpenAccess for security and privacy use cases. These companies are using OpenAccess to extend the capabilities of existing JDBC and ODBC drivers. With OpenAccess, the behavior of a database driver can be tailored by intercepting and inspecting SQL statements, altering database result set content including 3rd party encrypting and decrypting or enhancing the data to ensure privacy and security compliance. As a bonus, all of this can be done with minimal coding in OpenAccess SDK. 

Also, we see these organizations integrating OpenAccess with their enterprise security systems to enable role-based access controls. This allows clients to have customized row and column-level security, providing a seamless way to secure data to end-users. Personally identifiable information that shouldn’t be seen by all users can be hidden or exposed only on a need-to-know, per user basis. This creates safeguards around the data, helping enterprises stay compliant with privacy and security regulations.

There are commercial software products that provide this functionality. In fact, Sotero uses OpenAccess as a part of their Data Security Platform product. Here is some more information about Sotero and OpenAccess, including a webinar where they explain how they used OpenAccess to build a product that creates a secure data- sharing framework to address security, compliance and privacy. 

Ultimately, it comes down to build versus buy. If there is a commercial product that provides exactly the functionality you need, or at least close enough, it would make sense to investigate purchasing that product.  Maybe it’s because they don’t integrate with your enterprise security system or they don’t support the data encryption tools you want to use, or perhaps they don’t support all the databases you need. If that’s the case, you could use OpenAccess to provide the database security and privacy platform that your organization needs while having the flexibility, independence and agility necessary to tailor your defense . 

If you are an independent software vendor, the resulting OpenAccess driver can be white labeled with your company and product names, including customized message prefixes, error messages and configuration dialog boxes.

If you would like to learn more about all of this, or if you have a question, we are here to help. Talk to a DataDirect expert.

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