The authentication process verifies the identity of a user account.

By default, Hadoop does not authenticate users. Any user can be used in the Hadoop connection. Informatica recommends that you enable authentication for the cluster. If authentication is enabled for the cluster, the cluster authenticates the user account used for the Hadoop connection between Big Data Management and the cluster. For a higher level of security, you can set up Kerberos authentication for the cluster.

The Informatica domain uses one of the following authentication protocols:

Native authentication

The Informatica domain stores user credentials and privileges in the domain configuration repository and performs all user authentication within the Informatica domain.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

The LDAP directory service stores user accounts and credentials that are accessed over the network.

Kerberos authentication

Kerberos is a network authentication protocol that uses tickets to authenticate users and services in a network. Users are stored in the Kerberos principal database, and tickets are issued by a KDC.

User impersonation

User impersonation allows different users to run mappings on a Hadoop cluster that uses Kerberos authentication or connect to big data sources and targets that use Kerberos authentication.

Apache Knox Gateway

The Apache Knox Gateway is a REST API gateway that authenticates users and acts as a single access point for a Hadoop cluster.

For more information about how to enable authentication for the Hadoop cluster, see the documentation for your Hadoop distribution.