Data-warehouse providers are quickly adding Hadoop distributions, or even their own versions of Hadoop, into their architecture, adding further cost advantages to collections of extremely large data sets. Finding the talent to manage this newly converged environment will not be easy, but it presents tremendous opportunity for companies willing to take some risk. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Two legacy powers — SAP and Kendall Square (in the guise of hack/reduce) pulled out the stops Friday to woo big data entrepreneurs. SAP wants them to use HANA. Hack/reduce just wants them to stick around. Read more »
Companies are rushing to embrace the promise of big data to understand both their businesses and the ways in which customers interact with them. But effective data-based decisions are not made in response to simplistic data reporting; they are made in response to considered and ongoing data analysis. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Big data tools such as Cassandra and Hadoop are transforming how data is stored and exploited at scale. But without similarly capable search technologies, enterprise adopters face challenges when it comes to gaining insights from that data. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hack/reduce will launch its cool new work space near Cambridge’s Kendall Square on Thursday. The goal of the effort is to bring together the best big data people from private and public sectors and academia to train up the next generation of data scientists. Read more »
If you’re a big data hacker in the greater Boston area, hack/reduce wants you to join its effort to make the area a big data hub, according to Abbey Fichtner. Read more »
Keen.io the startup that wants to supply the analytics platform for the mobile masses, netted $750,000 in new funding atop the $118,000 it already took in via TechStars. The investors include 500 Startups, Data Collective and SK Ventures, said co-founder Kyle Wild. Read more »
Zynga is in a tricky position technologically thanks to its new frenemy status with Facebook. Zynga claims 240 million active users, and it wants a lot more, but scaling to those heights might require one heck of a computing infrastructure. Read more »
The metro Boston area has good database DNA dating back to Digital’s Rdb. Those good genes are resurfacing in a fresh crop of database startups clustered in the area. Here are five hot database startups to watch in the Boston-Cambridge-Waltham nexus.. Read more »
Big data’s fine; the right data’s a game changer. Serial database entrepreneur Andy Palmer — who co-founded Vertica Systems and VoltDB — sees this massive amount of diverse big data as table stakes. The real, compelling value lies in “big analytics,” he says. Read more »
It may not be Silicon Valley but the Boston-Cambridge metro area has a lot going for it — infrastructure expertise, a deep talent pool, and VC funding. Facebook famously went elsewhere, but here’s why other local companies started here (and will stay put.) Read more »
The greater Boston area may not be the hub of the big data universe that some recent research suggests, but it got a leg up this week with news that tech giant Hewlett-Packard is moving some of its big data operations to Cambridge. Read more »
In a meeting of analytics minds, Birst and ParAccel are putting Birst’s graphical reporting gloss atop ParAccel’s analytics database.
Deals like this are the latest proof that big data is important but the ability to put that data into a useable format is also key. Read more »
There has been a remarkable flowering of companies over the past year or two, all riding a wave of developer and investor enthusiasm for the loosely defined concept of “big data.” But given that the big data startup market is probably overvalued and headed for a ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With its new Idol 10 software, Hewlett-Packard brings together key Vertica and Autonomy technologies acquired over the last year for an assault on knotty big data problems. HP says the software can collect and analyze unstructured data including video, audio and social net feeds. Read more »
Cambridge, Mass.-based startup Hadapt closed a Series A funding round of $9.5 million for its Hadoop-based software that handles structured and unstructured data in a single system. Norwest Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which comes about seven months after Hadapt’s launch. Read more »
Infobright today announced version 4.0 of its analytic database designed for machine-generated data, complete with a handful of innovations that should significantly the speed and accuracy of poring through piles of big data. Read more »
What if you amassed petabytes of data and then realized you had nothing you wanted to do with it? It’s not enough to hoard data hoping for patterns; to create the true promise of a big data revolution the industry needs big apps. Read more »
Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hadoop has been used by large web companies for applications such as search engines, but the reality is that the project is so much more. This report takes a closer look, examining what Hadoop is (and isn’t), who’s doing what to productize it and why we can expect to see the market pick up serious steam in 2011. We profile the growing number of companies — from startups like MapR to Cloudera, the arguable leader in the space — using Hadoop, the challenges still hindering widespread adoption and where potential users can expect the market to go as we move through 2011 and beyond. Companies mentioned in this report include Yahoo, Facebook, EMC, Teradata and Appistry. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
HP announced this morning that it has signed an agreement to acquire analytical database provider Vertica for an undisclosed amount, a decision that finally puts HP into the data warehouse market and analytics space that is becoming more important by the day. Read more »
