The 10 Coolest Big Data Platforms And Tools Of 2020 (So Far)

As big data volumes explode, demand grows for database, data management and business analytics technologies for deriving value from that data. Here are 10 cool big data platforms and tools that have debuted so far this year.

Big Data, Big Demands

Not only are the volumes of data being collected by businesses and organizations growing exponentially, that data is increasingly scattered across on-premises, cloud, hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud systems. That’s increasing the complexity of managing, accessing and utilizing that data.

IT vendors, both startups and established players, are racing to develop the next-gen platforms and tools that make it possible to manage that data and make it accessible to analysts and information workers who can use it for insights and competitive advantage.

Here are 10 such big data platform and tool offerings that have caught our attention so far in 2020.

Many of the featured products are new cloud Database-as-a-Service platforms and related software. That’s no surprise: In a July 1 report market researcher Gartner said that by 2022, 75 percent of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, largely for databases used for business analytics and for Software-as-a-Service applications.

Alteryx Analytic Process Automation Platform, Analytics Hub and Intelligence Suite

In May, Alteryx debuted the Alteryx Analytic Process Automation (APA) Platform, an end-to-end data science, machine learning and analytics process automation system used by analysts and data scientists to prepare, blend, enrich and analyze data.

In June the company extended the capabilities of the Alteryx APA Platform with the Alteryx Analytics Hub and Alteryx Intelligence Suite.

Analytics Hub works with the Alteryx APA Platform to consolidate analytic assets into one system where they can be accessed by data workers and shared for collaborative tasks. Intelligence Suite, part of the Alteryx APA Platform 2020.2 update, works with Analytics Hub and Alteryx Designer to help users without a data science background build their own predictive models.

Aparavi Data Intelligence & Automation Platform

Expanding beyond its file backup and data protection roots, Aparavi in March debuted the Aparavi Data Intelligence & Automation Platform that’s used to find, classify, automate and govern distributed data across on-premises and cloud systems.

The cloud-based platform is used for a range of big data management tasks including data discovery, data retention and access, data storage and protection, and data governance, risk and compliance management. The system provides business analytics, machine learning and collaboration tools with access to distributed data, helping users transform it into a competitive asset.

Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud

Collibra markets its flagship Collibra Platform that provides data catalog, data governance, data lineage and data privacy capabilities – all to help businesses and organizations manage their data assets and utilize them for such initiatives as digital business transformation.

In June Collibra debuted the Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud, a fully managed, cloud-native system that automates data workflows, provides visibility into data assets, and creates a streamlined way for business users to access and analyze data.

Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud is built on a microservices architecture for more easily enhancing services or developing new ones. It also offers data scoring, which computes a data quality measure at the attribute level, and tools for managing individuals’ data requests.

Couchbase Cloud

Couchbase now offers Couchbase Cloud, the developer’s next-generation database as a fully managed Database-as-a-Service running on the Amazon Web Services platform. The DBaaS began beta testing in February and became generally available in June.

Couchbase is looking to appeal to businesses that are pursuing digital transformation initiatives as well as trying to get big data system costs under control in these recessionary times. While companies and organizations often maintain on-premises “systems of record” transactional databases, may are developing cloud-based database and business analytics applications.

Couchbase Cloud is based on the Couchbase Server, a multi-purpose NoSQL database that combines a high-performance, memory-first, globally replicating cluster architecture with key-value stores, a SQL-compatible query language and a schema-flexible JSON format.

The company expects to offer Couchbase Cloud on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform by the end of the year.

Databricks Delta Engine

Fast-growing Databricks, developer of the Databricks Unified Data Analytics Platform, expanded its technology portfolio in June with the Databricks Delta Engine, a high-performance query engine for cloud-based data lakes.

The new software is expected to help businesses get more insights and value out of data lakes, huge stores of unorganized data.

Databricks developed Delta Lake, a data storage technology layer that runs on data lakes, in 2017 and donated the Delta Lake to the Linux Foundation as an open-source project. The new Delta Engine, a commercial product, works in conjunction with Delta Lake to enable fast query execution for data analytics and data science without having to move data out of a data lake.

DataStax Astra

In May, DataStax announced the general availability of DataStax Astra, a Database-as-a-Service edition of the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database with a focus on simplifying the development of cloud-native Cassandra applications.

Apache Cassandra is an open-source NoSQL database system that’s designed for applications that require high availability and handle massive volumes of data across many servers. Astra is a cloud-native Cassandra-as-a-Service offering that runs on the Google Cloud Platform.

DataStax Enterprise, the company’s flagship commercial product, is a scale-out, high-availability database platform based on Cassandra. Astra extends the DataStax portfolio into the cloud.

Logi Analytics Logi Composer

Business intelligence tools are generally designed for experienced business analysts rather than information workers who lack programming or analytical expertise. One way to make business analytics – and the insights it can provide – available to information workers is by embedding analytical functionality into the applications they use every day.

In June Logi Analytics launched Logi Composer, a software development team platform that ISVs and corporate developers use to build self-service business analytics capabilities directly into commercial and in-house applications and workflows.

Logi Composer is used to design, build and embed interactive dashboards and data visualizations into applications and develop connections to popular data sources that underlie the applications. Logi Composer’s back-end query processing is powered by the Smart Data Connectors technology that Logi Analytics acquired in 2019 when it bought Zoomdata.

MariaDB SkySQL

MariaDB develops the popular community developed, commercially supported MariaDB relational database that’s used for both transactional and analytical tasks.

In March the company launched MariaDB SkySQL, a fully managed cloud Database-as-a-Service that also supports transactional and analytical applications. SkySQL uses Kubernetes for container orchestration; the ServiceNow workflow engine for inventory, configuration and workflow management; the Prometheus free software for real-time monitoring and alerting; and the Grafana open-source analytics and visualization application for data visualization.

In May MariaDB expanded SkySQL’s functionality with the ability to customize database options and configurations to meet enterprise-class security, high-availability and disaster recovery requirements.

MongoDB Atlas Data Lake, Atlas Search And Realm

Next-generation database developer MongoDB announced in June the general availability of new data lake, search and mobile database software that offers solution providers and ISVs more opportunities to develop applications and solutions that leverage data wherever it resides.

Atlas Data Lake and Atlas Search, in beta since 2019, significantly expanded the capabilities of MongoDB Atlas, the company’s fully managed cloud Database-as-a-Service that launched in 2016.

Atlas Data Lake uses the same MongoDB Query Language as the MongoDB database to run queries against data lakes, including long-running analytical queries, and can work with real-time transactional data. The Atlas Search engine is integrated with the MongoDB Atlas cloud database, using a consistent API, to provide search capabilities for applications developed for Atlas.

MongoDB also announced the general availability of MongoDB Realm, a mobile database that incorporates popular open-source technology the company acquired last year when it bought Realm.io.

PlanetScaleDB

In March, startup PlanetScale launched a multi-cloud version of its PlanetScaleDB, a cloud-native Database-as-a-Service. PlanetScaleDB is built on MySQL, the Kubernetes container platform and Vitess, an open-source database clustering system for deploying and managing large clusters of SQL database instances.

The multi-cloud PlanetScaleDB is designed to help businesses and organizations deploy, run and manage databases that span multiple cloud platforms simultaneously. That allows businesses to continue to serve data through a secondary cloud service provider should the primary cloud provider system fail.

The company also announced in March that PlanetScaleDB supports Microsoft Azure, in addition to its earlier support for Amazon Web Services and the Google Cloud Platform.