Actian Resolves Hadoop Adoption Dilemma by Giving Customers Open, Enterprise Grade SQL Analytics Access to Their Hadoop Data

With Skills Crisis Averted, Actian Solving Implementation Challenges for Hadoop Analytics

Strata 2015

SAN JOSE, Calif.--()--Actian Corporation (“Actian”), the first company to bring lightning fast, full ANSI SQL 92 compliant access natively in Hadoop, is now announcing that it has expanded its open footprint so customers can benefit from the power of the highest performing and fully industrialized SQL in Hadoop without risking vendor lock-in. Actian Vortex has opened Hadoop to millions of SQL programmers from Bangalore to San Francisco and to popular SQL-based business intelligence tools like MicroStrategy, Tableau and Yellowfin. Now, Actian’s collaborative architecture allows customers to query native Hadoop file formats like Parquet and ORC without requiring complex ingestion and provides open access to Actian’s block formats to achieve maximum performance, scale, flexibility, and security.

Hadoop is unrivalled as a cost-effective and super-scaling data reservoir. But, as with any young technology, it is plagued with performance challenges and lack of available skilled resources. Actian has focused relentlessly on providing any Hadoop data lake with an open, enterprise-grade analytics engine to accelerate Hadoop adoption, business solutions and time to revenue. Several years ago, McKinsey1 reported that by 2018, the industry will face a shortage of up to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills to bring Hadoop into the enterprise. However, more recently, Forrester2 predicts that in 2015 the skill shortage will be overcome as “fast and ANSI-compliant SQL on Hadoop creates immediate opportunities for Hadoop to become a useful data platform for enterprises…For those familiar with business intelligence, SQL on Hadoop will open the door to familiar access to their data.”

“Actian Vortex has essentially averted the analytical skills crisis for Hadoop customers by providing the only enterprise grade, full SQL analytics engine for Hadoop. Now, we are focusing on solving the infrastructure skills shortage for managing enterprise-scale Hadoop solutions,” said Ashish Gupta, Actian chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development. “By providing access to popular Hadoop file formats, Actian has erased ingestion challenges and with native support for popular open source management tools, Actian has eased Hadoop adoption challenges. Our customers can now focus on solving the stickiest business challenges – from cybersecurity to risk management with Hadoop-based solutions that are complemented by Actian Vortex.”

Actian’s SQL in Hadoop: Battle-Tested, Enterprise Open Software for Modern Big Data Initiatives

In head-to-head comparisons with SQL-on-Hadoop offerings like Cloudera Impala, Actian has outperformed in analytic processing time by up to 30x. By pairing raw performance with full SQL ANSI support, ACID-compliance, and full DBMS security and authentication, users can query Hadoop data using standard BI and reporting tools. It is the only product that enables real-time trickle updates, making it possible for the first time to easily correct and update data in Hadoop while still running high-performance analytics on the data. Actian makes it possible to avoid vendor lock-in by being Hadoop-distribution agnostic, providing open APIs and supporting open file formats. The result: SQL programmers and business analysts have powerful productivity and accuracy breakthroughs while making high science analytics consumable, accessible and reusable.

“Actian has a multi-year technology lead on other products in the market today, thanks to our enterprise-hardened technology that has been built from the ground up to run natively in Hadoop,” said Mike Hoskins, Actian chief technology officer. “We’ve opened the Hadoop floodgates to SQL programmers and business analysts, fundamentally removing the skills gap from the Hadoop adoption equation. Now, organizations can turn their attention to the next big data dilemma – being bold enough to change the status quo and infuse Hadoop analytics into every facet of their business.”

Actian will be exhibiting at Strata + Hadoop World in San Jose Feb. 17-20 in booth 1125. Emma McGrattan, senior vice president of engineering, will be presenting “SQL in Hadoop: To Boldly Go Where No Data Warehouse Has Gone Before” on Thursday, Feb. 19 from 1:30 – 2:10 in LL21 A, followed by office hours from 2:20-3:00 at Table C. Christy Maver, global director of product marketing, will be presenting “Fighting ATM Fraud in Real Time with Hadoop Analytics” during the Solutions Showcase Theater.

Learn more about Forrester’s 2015 Hadoop predictions and trends during a webinar on Wednesday, March 4 at 11:00 a.m. PT featuring Mike Gualtieri, Forrester principal analyst; John Kreisa, Hortonworks vice president, strategic marketing; and Christy Maver, Actian global director of product marketing. Register by clicking here.

About Actian: Accelerating Big Data 2.0™

Actian transforms big data into business value for organizations of all sizes, no matter where they are on their analytics journey. We help companies win by empowering them to connect to data of any type, size or location; analyze it quickly wherever it resides; and take immediate action on accurate insights gained to delight their customers, gain competitive advantage, manage risk and find new sources of income. With the Actian Analytics Platform, Actian has delivered the world’s first end-to-end analytics platform built to run 100 percent natively in Hadoop. Among tens of thousands of organizations using Actian are innovators in the financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, digital media and retail industries. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has offices worldwide. Stay connected with Actian Corporation at www.actian.com or on FacebookTwitter and LinkedIn.

Actian, Big Data for the Rest of Us, Accelerating Big Data 2.0 and Actian Analytics Platform are trademarks of Actian Corporation and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

1 Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

2 Forrester Research, Inc.: Predictions 2015: Hadoop Will Become A Cornerstone Of Your Business Technology Agenda. Mike Gualtieri with Holger Kisker, Ph.D., Sharyn Leaver, James Staten, Brian Hopkins, David Murphy, and Sophia Christakis. November 4, 2014

Contacts

Actian Corporation
Lacy LaBorde, 512-231-6507
lacy.laborde@actian.com

Release Summary

Actian, the first company to bring lightning fast, full ANSI SQL 92 compliant access natively in Hadoop, announces it has expanded its open footprint so customers can benefit without vendor lock-in.

Contacts

Actian Corporation
Lacy LaBorde, 512-231-6507
lacy.laborde@actian.com