Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning

I have the privilege of working for the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, covering information management with a strong focus for the past few years on an emerging software stack called Hadoop. In the early part of 2015, that particular technology is moving from early adopter status to early majority in its marketplaceContinue reading “Perspectives on Hadoop: Procurement, Plans, and Positioning”

Hortonworks IPO – Why Now?

Last week, many observers were surprised when Hortonworks’ S1 for an initial public offering (IPO) was filed. And there are good reasons to be surprised. Why now? CEO Rob Bearden told VentureWire not long ago that he expected to exit 2014 “at a strong $100 million run rate” in preparation for a 2015 IPO. What changed? PerhapsContinue reading “Hortonworks IPO – Why Now?”

Strata Spark Tsunami – Hadoop World, Part One

New York’s Javits Center is a cavernous triumph of form over function. Giant empty spaces were everywhere at this year’s empty-though-sold-out Strata/Hadoop World, but the strangely-numbered, hard to find, typically inadequately-sized rooms were packed. Some redesign will be needed next year, because the event was huge in impact and demand will only grow. A few ofContinue reading “Strata Spark Tsunami – Hadoop World, Part One”

Hadoop Investments Continue: Teradata, HP Jockey For Position

Interest from the leading players continues to drive investment in the Hadoop marketplace. This week Teradata made two acquisitions – Revelytix and Hadapt – that enrich its already sophisticated big data portfolio, while HP made a $50M investment in, and joined the board of, Hortonworks. These moves continue the ongoing effort by leading players. 4 ofContinue reading “Hadoop Investments Continue: Teradata, HP Jockey For Position”

What Is Hadoop….Now?

In February 2012, Gartner published How to Choose The Right Apache Hadoop Distribution (available to clients). At the time, the leading distributors were Cloudera, EMC (now Pivotal), Hortonworks (pre-GA), IBM, and MapR. These players all supported six Apache projects: HDFS, MapReduce, Pig, Hive, HBase, and Zookeeper. Things have changed. –more–

Hadoop Summit Recap Part Two – SELECT FROM hdfs WHERE bigdatavendor USING SQL

Probably the most widespread, and commercially imminent, theme at the Summit was “SQL on Hadoop.” Since last year, many offerings have been touted, debated, and some have even shipped. In this post, I offer a brief look at where things stood at the Summit and how we got there. To net it out: offerings todayContinue reading “Hadoop Summit Recap Part Two – SELECT FROM hdfs WHERE bigdatavendor USING SQL”

Hadoop Summit Recap Part One – A Ripping YARN

I had the privilege of keynoting this year’s Hadoop Summit, so I may be a bit prejudiced when I say the event confirmed my assertion that we have arrived at a turning point in Hadoop’s maturation. The large number of attendees (2500, a big increase – and more “suits”) and sponsors (70, also a significant uptick) madeContinue reading “Hadoop Summit Recap Part One – A Ripping YARN”

Hadoop Distributions And Kids’ Soccer

The big players are moving in for a piece of the big data action.  IBM, EMC, and NetApp have stepped up their messaging, in part to prevent startup upstarts like Cloudera from cornering the Apache Hadoop distribution market. They are all elbowing one another to get closest to “pure Apache” while still “adding value.” NumerousContinue reading “Hadoop Distributions And Kids’ Soccer”