Features
MaxCompute provides a unified data catalog and data governance solution. This solution covers data objects such as tables, views, snapshots, and models to enable fine-grained access control and auditing. Security policies are defined once and take effect globally.
MaxCompute supports hosting access credentials for Alibaba Cloud services through a Connection. It automatically discovers structured and unstructured data files in external data lakes, such as OSS, and registers them as foreign tables. Accessing data through tables simplifies the data analytics flow. Caching statistics for data lake tables also improves computing performance.
Data lake connection (CONNECTION)
A data lake connection (CONNECTION) hosts access credentials for Alibaba Cloud services. It supports delegating authorization for external storage to the CONNECTION in scenarios such as data discovery and foreign table computation. The CONNECTION is securely encrypted and stored in the global meta service. Users with the Connection_Admin and Connection_User roles can manage and use the corresponding CONNECTION. When accessing Alibaba Cloud services through a CONNECTION, users do not need to provide authentication information, such as AccessKey IDs and AccessKey secrets, in plaintext.
Data discovery (DataScan)
MaxCompute quickly discovers and manages structured and semi-structured data files stored in a data lake. It detects the file and table formats of the data and automatically registers the data as foreign tables. This enables rapid analysis of data lake data using SQL and MaxFrame. It also provides enterprise-level access control, data masking, and row-level permissions to ensure data lake security.