Developer Tools & Open Source

Hortonworks Unveils Big Data Solutions with Greater Scale

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  June 01, 2016

Hortonworks recently announced a flurry of news, including what the company’s leader called the “first set of connected data platforms that allow you to derive actual intelligence from that platform.” Those solutions include the Hortonworks Data Platform 2.4 and the Hortonworks DataFlow 1.2.

Hortonworks last year acquired Onyara and introduced Hortonworks DataFlow, which allows users to collect, conduct, and curate real-time data in an environment that delivers end-to-end security with encryption. Now, with the new Hortonworks DataFlow 1.2 platform, which leverages Apache Kafka and STORM, users can manage their data in motion at scale, said Hortonworks President and COO Herb Cunitz in a March press conference.

The Hortonworks Data Platform, meanwhile, is the company’s data-at-rest platform. It delivers historical insights across all a business’s data. What’s new with it now is the general availability of Apache Spark 1.6, Apache Ambari 2.2, and SmartSense 1.2 in Hortonworks Data Platform 2.4.

Apache Spark 1.6, Cunitz said, allows for Spark streaming at 10 times the previous performance, seamless data access via a dataset API, automatic memory tuning, and an Apache Zeppelin Technical Preview to reach more users. The 2.2 release of Apache Ambari, meanwhile, allows users to employ a single pane of glass to manage all their core services. It also integrates the SmartSense cluster intelligence that Hortonworks introduced last year; that includes 250 recommendations to optimize cluster performance and availability.

Cunitz added that Hortonworks has more than 800 customers, some of which are large production customers running hundreds or thousands of nodes and want to run platforms at scale, and others of which are customers that want to be on the bleeding edge of what’s available. Now the company has the first distribution that is able to manage both types of customers, he said, adding that’s unique in the industry.

Hortonworks was founded in 2011 to expand on Hadoop, introduced YARN in 2013, and went public in December 2014. Today the company, which reported $122 million in revenue last year and expects to reach cash breakeven with $188 million in revenues this year, serves 55 of the top 100 financial services customers, 75 of top 100 retail customers, eight of the top nine North American telcos, and eight of the world’s top 20 automotive customers.




Edited by Maurice Nagle