Janelle Teng from Bessemer Venture Partners recently published an insightful analysis of how data infrastructure is experiencing a revolutionary architectural shift with the rise of the "lake house" paradigm.
As a board member at Virtru, Janelle has a front-row seat to the evolving data landscape, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on her observations and highlight a parallel architectural revolution that's equally significant: the shift toward data-centric security.
The Lake House Revolution
Janelle eloquently describes how we've progressed from traditional on-premise data warehouses, to cloud-native data warehouses and lakes, and now to the lake house paradigm—a revolutionary architecture that combines the best elements of both worlds to support multiple use cases from analytics to AI workloads.
This architectural shift is creating unprecedented interoperability in enterprise data infrastructure, breaking down vendor lock-in and enabling best-in-class solutions across the data stack. As Janelle notes, this transformation isn't just a marginal improvement, but a radical change that will give rise to the next wave of multi-billion-dollar data infrastructure giants.
The Parallel Security Revolution
What's fascinating is that while this architectural shift is reshaping data infrastructure, a parallel revolution is occurring in data security. Just as the lake house paradigm is changing how enterprises store, access, and process data, we're witnessing a fundamental shift from traditional perimeter-based security controls to data-centric security architectures.
This shift is being powered by the Trusted Data Format (TDF), an open standard that embeds protection directly into the data itself. Rather than relying on perimeter controls to "keep data in," TDF gives organizations agency over sensitive information so that it can flow freely across cloud environments, applications, and organizational boundaries – but in a manner that does not sacrifice security, privacy, or control.
Why This Matters: The Governance Challenge
Janelle identifies several critical governance challenges that enterprises face in this new data era:
- Proliferating Data Silos: Rather than consolidating, data silos are actually multiplying across organizations. Each new tool, platform, and service often creates another data repository that needs to be secured and governed.
- External Data Sharing: Data that was previously used mostly internally is now increasingly shared externally—with partners, customers, and AI services. This dramatically expands the security perimeter and effectively renders traditional "walled garden" approaches to data governance obsolete.
- Blurring Boundaries Between Engineering Roles: The line between application developers and data engineers is rapidly blurring. Teams need tools that work for both disciplines as data becomes more integrated into application development and AI initiatives.
These challenges make traditional perimeter-based security approaches increasingly inadequate. When data constantly moves between internal systems, external partners, and cloud services, security must be intrinsic to the data itself rather than dependent on the environment it resides in.
The Trusted Data Format: The Foundation for Data-Centric Security
This is precisely why the Trusted Data Format (TDF) is so crucial for the future of data security. Just as open table formats like Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, and Apache Hudi have helped to enable the lake house revolution, TDF provides the open standard foundation for data-centric security.
TDF enables persistent protection and granular access controls that remain with data throughout its lifecycle. It allows organizations to maintain control over sensitive information regardless of where it's stored or who it's shared with, ensuring that governance policies are enforced consistently across environments.
Virtru's Data Security Platform
The Virtru Data Security Platform is built on this foundation, providing developers and data engineers with the tools they need to implement data-centric security in this new era. Through our documentation, SDKs, and APIs, we're enabling both application developers and data engineers to embed granular protection and policy controls directly into their workflows.
This is particularly important as the line between these roles continues to blur. Just as Janelle notes that "the assembly line model of engineering no longer makes sense in 2025," we believe that security can no longer be a separate discipline that comes after development. Instead, it must be embedded into the development process itself—accessible to both application developers and data engineers through familiar tools and workflows.
Looking Forward
As we enter this new era of Data 3.0 and the lake house paradigm, organizations need to consider not just how they're transforming their data infrastructure, but also how they're evolving their approach to data security and governance.
The architectural shifts Janelle describes present tremendous opportunities for innovation and value creation. But they also require us to fundamentally rethink how we protect and govern data in a world where it's constantly moving, being shared, and being used in new ways.
At Virtru, we're committed to enabling this transition to data-centric security through the open TDF standard and our Data Security Platform. As the lake house architecture ushers in a new era of interoperability for data infrastructure, TDF is doing the same for data security—ensuring that protection and governance are intrinsic to the data itself, no matter where it goes or how it's used.
