NC1701

NETWORKEXPERT
The high throughput, low-latency transmission of real-time data feeds is essential to so
many aspects of both personal and professional life. In fact, for many, it has become so
mission critical that a specialised streaming platform is required.
K is for Kafka. Apache Kafka is an open source distributed streaming platform developed by
the Apache Software Foundation. It is used to connect sensor-based data, operations and
people to enable real-time analysis of data. Kafka is designed as a distributed system and its
structure makes it highly scalable with fast and reliable performance, offering high throughput
for both publishing and subscribing, supporting hundreds of thousands of messages per second.
Sham Chotai, Chief Technology Officer at GE Power Digital Solutions says, "Kafka's open
source nature makes it incredibly flexible. The source code can be customised, allowing for new
collaborations and integration with various software solutions, ultimately ensuring scalable
functionality through shifts in various technology architectures."
Focusing on the inexorable adoption of IoT, Sham explains that, "Kafka's capacity to rapidly
stream and ingest large data quantities make it a critical component for the Internet of Things
(IoT) and across the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) by helping to make sense of the terabytes
and exabytes of sensor data. The IIoT in particular relies on Kafka's real-time capabilities to build applications that can effectively monitor
equipment, including propellers, turbines and engines, and then predict outages and mechanical issues. Kafka's ability to ingest data at
scale allows for batch, micro-batch and real-time processing, so a wind energy farm equipped with sensors that generate billions of data
points can, for instance, provide operators with access to terabytes of machine data to improve generation and reduce operational cost."
As you can imagine, operations and employee productivity are dramatically improved through the use of this technology and Sham adds
that "Sensor-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions require sophisticated networks to handle the high-throughput needed for
consistent performance. The sheer magnitude of increasing volumes of data gathered by enterprises and smart consumer devices creates
a complex challenge for network operators. A lack of advanced infrastructure and protocols vital to the IIoT foundation results in
frequently congested networks."
As the creation of real-time data pipelines and the importance of reliably delivering that data to systems and applications increases, the
desire to transform or react to the streams of data will increase. Sham concludes, "Apache Kafka's interoperability allows it to not only
work with various technologies but also assist in swiftly ingesting incoming traffic, so data capture workflows take place and relieve
network traffic."
Any permitted network connection comes replete with an element of risk. It
therefore follows that the first step in managing this risk starts with only
granting access to those that have a defined requirement which is then further
controlled by ensuring that their level of access is adequate for their requirement,
and no more.
L is for Least Privilege. Privilege accounts are a necessary evil in all aspects of
network environments, from infrastructure through operating systems and onto
applications. Brian Chappell, Director of Technical Services at BeyondTrust points out
that, "At every point, we are battling the need for privileged access against securing
the environment against malicious acts. It's difficult and complex. Least Privilege is a
best practice first posited by Jerome Saltzer, one of the architects of the Multics
operation system, in 1973/4. It's the idea that each user and process in the
environment will have the least privilege necessary to be productive."
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 NETWORKcomputing 13