Successful businesses recognize that information is a strategic tool that can help them gain advantage in today’s marketplace and transform the way they interact with customers. However, applications must also scale to levels that were unimaginable just a few years ago, and scaling alone isn’t enough. Companies also require that their applications are always available and lightning fast. This combination is where traditional databases fail. Technology leader O’Reilly notes that the characteristics of modern data “exceed the processing capacity of conventional database systems. The data is too big, moves too fast, or doesn’t fit the structures of your database architectures. To gain value from this data, you must choose an alternative way to process it.”
Today’s new rules of data management, coupled with the capabilities of NoSQL databases like Cassandra, might be why IT analysts such as Wikibon are bullish on big data, forecasting NoSQL growth at a rate of 60% until at least 2017.
In regulated industries such as health care, financial services and public education, the apparent lack of NoSQL security features can be a roadblock to big data adoption. This guide explores big data solutions with enterprise-class security features that businesses need to protect key data assets.