The challenge of managing data access, accountability and security, collectively known as data governance, is bringing companies together to create a standardized, holistic solution. Hortonworks Inc., an enterprise data management software company, is seeking to unify the data management experience across multiple industries by leveraging open-source technology to create a common trusted framework.

“We don’t want to be just a streaming engine or just a tool for … creating pipes and data flows and so on. We really want to create that entire experience around what needs to happen for data that’s moving,” said Scott Gnau (pictured), chief technology officer at Hortonworks. 

Gnau spoke with George Gilbert (@ggilbert41) and Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the BigData SV event in San Jose, California. They discussed Hortonworks’ strategy for driving industry adoption of modern data management solutions. (* Disclosure below.)

Open-source solutions to industry-wide challenges

Historically, data governance has been comprised of disparate proprietary solutions, none of which solved the problem at a holistic level, according to Gnau. Hortonworks is taking an open-source stance with Apache Atlas — a data governance and metadata framework for Hadoop — to create a common infrastructure for data management that builds trust in the community but still allows for technology specialization, according to Gnau.

“We work with a lot of partners, some of whom were customers, some of whom are other vendors, even some of whom could be considered competitors, to try to drive an Apache open-source kind of project to become that standard layer that’s common into which vendors can bring their applications,” Gnau explained. 

Some companies are implementing data governance one application at a time that collectively creates a complete data management solution. Others are taking a more holistic approach by building a framework that ensures compliance and alignment with a company’s mission statement that applications are built on top of. 

“I also see a lot of customers, especially in highly regulated industries and especially in highly regulated jurisdictions, who are stepping back and saying, ‘Forget the applications. This is a data opportunity, and so I want to go solve my data fabric,’” Gnau concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the BigData SV event. (* Disclosure: Hortonworks Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Hortonworks nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE