Data offers a plethora of different utilizations across multiple industries, but it’s not easy for every business to fully extract all the information and usefulness from their data without the right help.

Pythian Services Inc. seeks to assist its customers in everything they need relating to data, including data security, leveraging data and analytics with the help of the cloud.

“We’ve seen a shift between infrastructure and applications being the IT asset, to data being the IT asset,” said Paul Lewis (pictured), chief technology officer of Pythian. “Now, I have to think about not protecting the bad actors from coming into my network, it’s about protecting the bad actors from taking my data … that’s what I need to monetize, and therefore that’s what I need to secure.”

Lewis spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Lisa Martin and Rob Strechay at the Google Cloud Next event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed current technology trends for chief information officers, data strategies and emerging technologies, and his thoughts on Google Cloud Next ’23.  (* Disclosure below.)

A zero-trust foundation

The security landscape has shifted as time goes on, Lewis explained. Over the years, traditional data centers turned into software-as-a-service, which later transformed into tech leaders turning to the public cloud, and finally, to the implementation of a private cloud.

“I have third parties managing my own equipment and of course the edge. Since data is both originated and consumed at all those points, you have to secure each one of those points,” Lewis said. “It’s a zero-trust implementation. Each transaction needs to be secured, each identity needs to be secured and I must ensure that the right people see the right data.”

One of the biggest crises facing cybersecurity is the massive skill gap, leading to a shortage of security experts. Several organizations are turning to gen AI to help mitigate this issue, but Pythian has other methods to help as well. The first step, Lewis said, is looking at the customer’s existing infrastructure and whether it was appropriately designed in the first place, ensuring the client zoned their data in a way so only certain people can access it.

“Then we’ll look at the schemas to say, are you segregating them enough, that the business users and the data scientists see different data?” Lewis said. “Then we look at your end-to-end value chain, the zero-trust implementation. We help you with both the people and the process and the technology infrastructure to support that.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Next event:

(* Disclosure: Pythian Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Pythian nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE