Tech 10: Big Doings In Big Data

New Wrestling With Big Data

The worldwide market for business intelligence and analytics hardware, software and services will hit $150.8 billion this year, according to International Data Corp., a 12.4 percent increase from 2016. The market will maintain a compound annual growth rate of 11.9 percent through 2020 when revenues will exceed $210 billion.

To meet that demand, established vendors and startups continue to develop a steady stream of innovative products that provide new ways to collect, prepare, manage and analyze the increasingly huge volumes of data that businesses are struggling with today.

Here are 10 recently announced new and upgraded big data software products that the channel should be aware of.

Anaconda Enterprise V5

The Python open-source programming language has become very popular for data science and big data projects. Anaconda (previously known as Continuum Analytics) introduced Anaconda Enterprise v5, a new release of the company’s Python data science software that makes it easier for data scientists to securely connect their models throughout an organization. That makes it possible to deploy graphical dashboards and interactive reports to executives and business analysts, and provide developers with access to REST APIs.

Confluent KSQL

Confluent, which develops software around the Apache Kafka open-source, stream-processing platform, debuted KSQL, an open-source streaming SQL engine that enables continuous, interactive queries on Kafka. KSQL allows developers familiar with SQL to build applications that work with Kafka, bringing its stream-processing capabilities to a wider audience. The Aug. 28 announcement said KSQL was in developer preview and would become part of the Confluent package.

Data Artisans dA Platform 2

Startup data Artisans debuted in September its new dA Platform 2 software that’s based on the open-source Apache Flink streaming data processing platform. The dA Platform 2 makes it easier to implement Flink for operational tasks, according to data Artisans’ founders, who were the original creators of Flink. The dA Platform 2 software includes an application manager that streamlines the process of deploying and maintaining real-time streaming applications in production environments.

Hortonworks DataFlow 3.0

Hortonworks has been putting increased emphasis on streaming data analytics applications with its DataFlow open-source ’datain-motion’ platform. DataFlow 3.0 extends the software’s analytics capabilities for Internet of Things and other streaming data applications. New in the HDF 3.0 edition is the Streaming Analytics Manager toolset that allows application developers, business analysts and administrators to design, build, test and deploy streaming applications on HDF without coding.

Host Analytics Summer17

The summer release of Host Analytics’ cloud enterprise performance management software offers an improved version of ’breakback,’ the software’s feature for reversing inputs and outputs within a financial model. The new edition also boasts tighter integration with NetSuite applications through native, transaction-level data analysis and drill-through capabilities. And the release fully supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge browsers.

Kyvos 4.0

Kyvos Insights says the Kyvos 4.0 edition of its big data analytics platform offers a ’quantum’ jump in the software’s scalability in both the amount of data it can process and the number of users it can support—the latter through a new active-active load balancing architecture that can scale to thousands of users. The 4.0 release also provides access to more data through a wider range of business intelligence tools, and new security capabilities for protecting data sources.

Looker 5

Looker released the fifth generation of its big data and business analytics platform with new capabilities that streamline the software’s development of custom visualizations, applications and actions. The new Action Hub and its library of integrations and actions make it easier for users to act on insight generated by the software. Looker 5 also provides new department-specific applications for consuming and acting on data and analytical results.

MicroStrategy 10.8

The new release of MicroStrategy’s enterprise analytics and mobility software offers a wide range of critical capabilities for enterprise analytics, mobility, cloud, Internet of Things and embedded analytics, as well as new features for MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Web, MicroStrategy Mobile and Usher. With 10.8 the R programming language and R Integration Pack are bundled and installed with MicroStragey Server for enhanced machine learning, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics capabilities.

Naveego Data Quality

Naveego, a provider of data quality and master data management tools, is shipping a new release of its cloud-based Naveego DQS data quality software for detecting, managing and eliminating data quality problems in cloud-based and on-premise data. The new release has the ability to compare data in two different systems, such as an internal SQL database and Salesforce.com. Other new functionality includes a new data system health dashboard, new technology for working with massive data sets, and templated data quality checks.

Tableau Software Acquires Cleargraph

On Aug. 9 Tableau Software acquired ClearGraph, a startup developer of natural language query technology used in data discovery and analysis applications. Tableau said it planned to integrate ClearGraph’s technology into its flagship business intelligence and interactive data visualization software, making it easier for people to interact with information by using conversational-style questions to search data.