Democratizing Data Through Secure Self-Service Concierge Access of Cribl Stream

Ah, the age-old question of how to manage screen time for kids – it’s like trying to navigate a minefield of Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, and PJ Masks! I mean, who knew Octonauts and Bubble Guppies would become household names? As a dad of two young kids, managing screen time is a balancing act, especially keeping our 5-year-old happy with access to her shows. But with our teen niece visiting occasionally, we also must make sure she can watch her own shows without exposing our 5-year-old to content that’s not age-appropriate. We’re grateful for the parental settings offered by smart TV features, which let us relax knowing our kids are safe and happy, even when we can’t oversee their viewing choices. And the fact that each person’s playlists and viewing preferences are separate means no one’s experience gets disrupted.

Welcome to the world of concierge data access (safely and reliably). Where users get access to data that’s so tailored that it’s practically wearing a bespoke suit. Regarding safety and reliability, today’s blog topic is all about Cribl Stream Projects – making data available to different personas safely and reliably. So, grab your popcorn, sit back, and get ready to learn about Cribl Stream Projects.

What Is Cribl Stream Projects, and Why Should You Care About Data Democratization?

We are grateful for the trust and support of our valued customers like you as Cribl Stream continues gaining recognition as an indispensable IT and Security team infrastructure platform. The increasing demand for Stream as an internal service is a testament to its effectiveness in improving operations and enhancing security measures. With the rise of ITOps, SecOps, SRE, DevOps, and other teams embracing Cribl Stream, we are excited to offer Cribl Stream Projects, which enables the secure expansion of Stream usage to more users within organizations. This enhances collaboration and provides deeper insights, resulting in a more personalized user experience. With Stream Projects, Cribl is the first product in the industry enabling organizations to allow teams to manage their own data without needing to understand the infrastructure or service being used to collect and route it. Talk about Data Democratization in the true sense!

So How Are Stream Projects Beneficial to Both Cribl Admins and Cribl Users?

Combined with Authorization (read more about it here), Stream Projects benefit both Cribl Admins and Cribl users by addressing their individual needs. Cribl Admins aim to limit the scope and blast radius of Cribl users’ changes on other users to ensure teams work within a specific scope. On the other hand, Cribl users can benefit from simplified views and workflows to work with data that caters to their needs and entitlements without affecting other users downstream. Cribl Admin creates a Project and defines which sources data are collected from and which destinations receive the processed data from Cribl Stream. The project creates a defined scope for users to work within, minimizing the risk of errors or unauthorized changes.

Stream Projects has three primary resources within it:

• Data Projects: This project serves as a dedicated space for data experts to work solely on the data they are interested in. That data has value as its fit to help them achieve their jobs. Stream admins can create secure projects with predetermined inputs and outputs to minimize the need for data experts to understand the overall pipeline mechanics. Furthermore, it allows Cribl Stream to be embraced by new teams and departments, which reduces the need to manage other pipelines and processing tools.

• Subscription: These are sub-streams of data obtained by applying filters and post-processing pipelines or packs. For example, you can have PII information removed in the pre-processing pipeline for the Contractors.

•  Role: This defines the authorized role with access permissions to a particular project. Users who are assigned this role will be able to access the project. This feature is covered in detail in our Authorization blog.

Stream Projects Explained With an Example:

Let’s understand Stream Projects with a real-life example scenario. In this scenario, the Cribl Admin wants to filter data from the same Firewall sources but split it between the Security and the Ops teams where each team shouldn’t have access to the other team’s data and processes. Let’s assume the Security team uses Splunk while the Operations team uses Elastic.

Yesterday :

• Cribl Admin restricts access to sources, and pipelines, creates routes to filter out data, and sends filtered data to custom pipelines created by the users/teams which will require back and forth due to dependencies
• The downside here was the teams can see each other’s data. And any changes to Route 1 can break Route 2 – making data inconsistent for both teams.

With Stream Projects:

• Create Data Projects per team with their respective Subscriptions
• Both teams have secure access to their own sets of data, and the changes don’t impact the other team.
• With AuthZ, team members perform their specific roles effectively while maintaining the appropriate level of access

Here is an explainer video on Stream Projects:

Cribl Stream Projects is only one of the exciting announcements we have in store for you this summer. If you’re interested, you can sign up at Cribl.Cloud today, where you can try all our products for free, up to 1TB of data throughput per day. Take it for a spin, and we bet you will love it! We’d love to hear from you in our community if you have any feedback. Join us to learn more about the newest features in our Cribl suite of products (Cribl Edge, Cribl Stream, and Cribl Search).

If you’d like to dig deeper, the Cribl Certified Observability Engineer (CCOE) certification program offers free industry-leading observability and security data education and knowledge. It exemplifies one’s commitment to mastering the skills and knowledge required to be a true observability engineer. Create your free Cribl University learner account and start your CCOE certification journey.

More about Cribl’s Summer Launch

• Turning Up the Heat: Cribl’s Summer Product Launch
• Different Access for Different Roles: Cribl’s New Authorization Support for Enhanced Security
• Cribl Search Adds 500% More Searchable Datasets
• The Stream Life Episode 88: What’s New With Cribl Stream, Edge, and Search?
• The Stream Life Episode 89: Cribl’s Enhanced Authorization Support