A startup software dealer is bringing cloud-computing technology used by the likes of Yahoo, Facebook and Google to regular enterprise data centers.
Silicon Valley-based Cloudera plans to make big data-processing capabilities accessible and affordable for all companies, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.
Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera, said Hadoop is a cloud-computing technology used to store and process petabytes of data on systems consisting of hundreds or even thousands of servers.
"Processing this kind of big data has been too expensive or too technically difficult for all but the most sophisticated IT organizations until now," he said.
IDC speculates that the global IT expenditure on cloud services will expand approximately threefold in the next 2-3 years, when it is estimated to total USD $42 billion and account for close to 9 per cent of revenues in five important market sectors.
IDC also predicts that expenditure on cloud computing will pick up pace throughout the next 2-3 years, and will most likely secure 25 per cent of IT spending growth in 2012.
This is expected to grow the following year and capture at least a 1/3rd of the market.
David Smith, Gartner’s vice president, thinks that cloud computing still has some way to go and the competition is just starting.
"Cloudera is not the only company supporting Hadoop. HP is doing a lot of work with Hadoop, as is Yahoo," he said.
However, there is a major difference between Cloudera and the others like Yahoo.
Cloudera is set up as a specific one-stop shop for the free Java software structure that presently sanctions the cloud.
Christophe Bisciglia, Cloudera’s founder and former manager of Google’s Hadoop cluster, said that listening to the community, he consistently hears that Hadoop installation, configuration, and deployment needs to be easier.
"That’s the primary reason why we built the Cloudera distribution for Hadoop," he said.
"But furthermore, a distribution fosters community growth by providing a common platform to share code, experience and, most importantly, innovation."
Cloudera’s latest Web-based configuration tool will facilitate enterprises to produce custom-tailored packages that meet their exact wants.
In addition, Cloudera is making a preconfigured VMware image liberally offered for assessment and use with the company’s complimentary online teaching.
"The Cloudera distribution of Hadoop gives you the same tools you already know to provide standardized packaging and automatic configuration," said Bisciglia.
He said that Cloudera’s sharing of Hadoop has always been founded on a established code of reliability.
"We enable users to limit upgrades to major project milestones built on code that is tried, trusted, and proven reliable," he said.
Finally, there will always be a few users who will need assistance in setting up and using the software for some critical adventures and this is where Cloudera will make up the money.
"These enterprises need a company to stand behind the package, and help them find and fix problems when they come up," said Olson.
Comments