Datameer Extends Its Big Data Analytics System To The Cloud

Data analytics platform developer Datameer has created a departmental version of its Hadoop-based software that will be delivered through the cloud.

The new offering is targeted at line-of-business managers, such as sales and marketing, in sharp contrast to the traditional IT department focused products from most business analytics software companies.

"In the last year we've seen a significant shift in the buyer for our product and for big data analytics," said Matt Schumpert, Datameer product manager, in an interview. He noted that in the latter half of 2014 the number of sales and marketing departments buying the company's software was exceeding the number of IT department customers.

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Datameer's flagship product, Datameer Enterprise Edition, is an on-premise package of data integration, analytics and visualization tools that run on a number of Hadoop distributions, including Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR Technologies. Datameer also offers a workgroup Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) edition that is hosted by the company.

Why the shift from IT to line of business? Schumpert said the "time to value" – the amount of time it takes to implement a business analytics system and begin using it – is often too long when central IT is buying and implementing an on-premise system. A cloud service designed for line-of-business users can significantly shorten that process.

Schumpert also said that while IT tended to buy software for specific tasks, such as data extraction, transfer and loading (ETL), lines of business users are looking for a general-purpose business analytics platform.

There has also been a significant increase in the adoption rate of Hadoop-as-a-Service from such vendors as Altiscale and Qubole, which is paving the way for products like Datameer Professional, said Schumpert.

Datameer will use such Hadoop-as-a-Service companies to host its new product and has announced deals with Altiscale and Bigstep, the latter the U.K.-based supplier of the Full Metal Cloud service, as hosting agents.

Big data analysis is becoming more mainstream and, in contrast to the early days of big data, "cloud computing is increasingly seen as a better way to do big data," said Ioana Hreninciuc, commercial director at Bigstep, in an interview with CRN. "We take all the complexity away," she said.

Bigstep's service provides a big data ecosystem that includes hardware, software such as relational databases, Hadoop and search tools, and an application layer. "Datameer fits perfectly into this ecosystem," Hreninciuc said.

Bigstep chose to work with Datameer because the company's technology "really gave Hadoop meaning to business users," she said, adding that the company's founders recognized earlier than most the potential of Hadoop in the cloud.