The Challenge: Legacy Databases in a Modern World
Cloud-native services get a lot of attention, but the backbone of enterprise operations often runs on deployed databases like Oracle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL. These systems are mission-critical and yet many still lack today’s security fundamentals: Single Sign-On, attribute-based access policies, centralized database activity monitoring.
The gap isn’t theoretical. As data becomes the lifeblood of decision-making, more teams need direct database access. Without modern controls, that demand leads to bad habits:
- Credential sharing that hides who’s actually accessing the data.
- Weakened accountability when actions can’t be traced to individuals.
- Greater misuse risk when credentials are widely distributed.
For security teams, the challenge compounds. Managing RBAC, permissions, and schema objects across dozens or hundreds of instances is operationally heavy, prone to error, and sometimes forces disruptive changes to data models — or even downtime.
The reality: enterprises need modern access control that strengthens security without breaking workflows or adding new attack surfaces.
The ALTR Approach: Sidecar Security
ALTR’s Sidecar Security is designed for that exact problem — delivering modern enforcement, visibility, and accountability for enterprise databases without altering core configurations.
By deploying directly inside your environment, Sidecar Security integrates with your existing identity provider and credential stores, extending consistent, identity-level access control across your entire database estate.
Effortlessly Scale Database Access
Map users and groups in your existing Identity Provider – like Okta – to existing database credentials without modifying the underlying database permissions or exposing credentials.
Policy Enforcement within Your Environment
Define and enforce fine-grained access policies—covering credentials, objects, and more—directly within your environment through low-latency integration.
Authentication to databases with Single Sign-On (SSO)
Allow users to sign in with SSO to access temporary database credentials, enabling easy data access from SQL clients.
Centralized and Secure Credential Management
Integrate ALTR’s sidecar directly with your existing Credential Stores, such as AWS Secrets Manager, to ensure underlying database credentials are never exposed to users or client applications.
Privacy-Safe Activity Logging
Capture all query activity, including detail on the identity of the authenticated user as well as the underlying credential used. Know exactly who did what, when.
SIEM and Audit Integration
Take control of your audit logs by exporting them to your existing security data lake and SIEM tools, unlocking compliance, forensics, and continuous monitoring.
Deploy Within your own Environment
ALTR’s sidecar can be deployed anywhere within your environment, both as a container or a package, enabling low-latency data security while centralizing policy and logs within a single control plane.
Built-In Telemetry and Health Monitoring
Use powerful sidecar monitoring and telemetry to easily identify the health of your deployment and automatically scale to changing workloads.
Why It Matters Now
The perimeter has dissolved. Data volumes are exploding. Regulatory demands are rising. The old model — static credentials, one-off access controls, disconnected audit trails — can’t keep up.
The next era of database security is defined by three things:
- Centralization: Manage policies and credentials from a single control point.
- Identity-level accountability: Tie every action to a known, verified user.
- Operational continuity: Improve security without slowing down the business.
That’s the philosophy behind ALTR Sidecar Security: modern security without the cost, delay, or disruption of a re-architecture. Because in today’s data-driven enterprises, the ability to prove who accessed what, when, and why isn’t just a security feature, it’s a business necessity.
Key Takeways
Legacy databases remain critical but outdated: Many still lack modern access controls like SSO, attribute-based policies, and centralized monitoring.
Bad access habits create risk: Credential sharing, poor accountability, and widespread access increase the likelihood of misuse.
Sidecar Security bridges the gap: ALTR’s solution delivers modern enforcement and visibility without re-architecting core systems.
Centralized policy and credential control is essential: Manage access and monitor activity across the entire database estate from one point.
Security without disruption is the new standard: Enterprises can improve compliance and security without slowing operations or creating new attack surfaces.