Credential Vending in Apache Polaris: Securing Data Access Without Sharing Keys By Prithvi S – Staff Software Engineer at Cloudera Introduction In modern data architectures, managing who can access what data is a constant challenge. Traditional approaches rely on long‑lived access keys or service accounts that are difficult to rotate and can become a security liability. Apache Polaris tackles this problem head‑on with a built‑in credential vending mechanism. Instead of distributing static keys, Polaris mints short‑lived, scoped credentials on demand, giving each request exactly the permissions it needs and expiring them after a few minutes. This post walks through the design, implementation, and benefits of credential vending in Polaris. It also shows how the feature integrates with the rest of the system, discusses best practices, and provides a practical example of using the API. Why Credential Vending?…