Cloudera, a company that provides a data platform for running analytics and AI across cloud and on-premise environments, has adopted Apache Polaris as part of its open data lakehouse architecture, which is built on the Apache Iceberg table format. Announced at the Snowflake Summit 2026, the integration is aimed at letting organisations access and share governed data across different analytics and AI engines while keeping governance centralised.
The move addresses problems that surface as companies scale AI work, including data spread across disconnected systems, governance complexity and dependence on single vendors. Cloudera's Data Readiness Index 2026 found that 79% of organisations say their data initiatives are held back because they cannot access all the data they need across environments, while only 18% report that their data is fully governed.
Apache Polaris is an open-source catalog built around the Apache Iceberg REST Catalog specification, designed to improve how different data systems work together and to support governed access to data for AI and analytics.
By adopting it, Cloudera aims to reduce the need to move and duplicate data across systems. As part of the work, Cloudera contributed an Apache Ranger authorizer plugin, released as a beta external authorizer in Apache Polaris 1.5, which adds centralised security and policy management to the catalog.
"Enterprises need the freedom to run analytics and AI wherever it makes sense for the business, without moving data or compromising governance," said Leo Brunnick, Chief Product Officer at Cloudera. "By adopting Apache Polaris, Cloudera is extending our open data strategy to help customers securely bring AI to their data anywhere it lives. Cloudera's adoption and contribution to the project reflects a shared commitment to giving enterprises greater flexibility, governance, and choice across their data ecosystems."
