Architectural Strategies to Tighten Data Security

by Scott W. Ambler

It seems as if every time you turn on the television there's an advertisement regarding identity theft or a newscast about how someone lost their laptop containing the personal records of hundreds of thousands of people. With losses running into the hundreds of millions from data theft, not to mention the impact from the reduced trust people have in the ability of many organizations to protect their data, it is clear that data security is a critical issue that must be addressed by your data architecture [1]. Data security issues include authentication, authorization (access control), and encryption/decryption. The good news is that there are architectural solutions to all of these issues, although many of them go beyond the narrow realm of data architecture and are actually IT architecture issues. The bad news is that security is rarely at the top of people's lists; although, mention terms such as "data confidentiality," "sensitivity," and "ownership," and they quickly become interested.