Context

Teradata sells software, hardware, and services for data warehouses and analytic applications. Part of the Teradata portfolio is also the Teradata Aster MapReduce Platform a massively parallel processing infrastructure with a software solution that embeds both SQL and MapReduce analytic processing for deeper analytic insights on multi-structured data and new analytic capabilities driven by data science.

Hortonworks offers services around the 100% Apache-licensed, open source Hortonworks Data Platform, an integrated solution built around Hadoop.

Announcement

The interesting bits from the announcement and media coverage:

News release:

Teradata and Hortonworks will join forces to provide technologies and strategic guidance to help businesses build integrated, transparent, enterprise-class big data analytic solutions that leverage Apache Hadoop. The partnership will focus on enabling businesses to use Apache Hadoop to harness the value from new sources of data. Businesses will be able to quickly load and refine multi-structured data, some of which is being discarded today, for discovery and analytics. The resulting insights will enable analysts and front line users to make the best business decision possible.

For example, each day websites generate many terabytes of raw, complex data about customers’ viewing and buying habits. These web logs can be directly loaded into Teradata Aster or Apache Hadoop where they can be stored, transformed, and refined in preparation for analysis by the Teradata Aster MapReduce platform (nb: my emphasis).

Derrick Harris:

The company [Teradata] has already worked with Hortonworks’ competitor Cloudera on a connector between the Teradata Database and Cloudera’s Hadoop distribution, but the Hortonworks deal appears a little deeper and more strategic.

Quentin Hardy:

The alliance between Teradata and Hortonworks means that companies can get strategic advice about how to get into the new analytics game from Teradata, and have practical help on running the systems from Hortonworks.

Arun Murthy:

However, there are two important challenges that need to be addressed before broad enterprise adoption can occur:

• Understanding the right use cases in which to utilize Apache Hadoop.
• Integrating Apache Hadoop with existing data architectures in an appropriate manner to get better value from existing investments.

My sense of excitement about the Teradata/Hortonworks partnership is amplified by the fact that it addresses these two core challenges for Apache Hadoop:

• We will be rolling out a reference architecture that provides guidance to enterprises that want to understand the best use cases for which to apply Hadoop. As part of that, we will be helping Teradata customers use Hadoop in conjunction with their Teradata and Teradata Aster analytic data solutions investments.
• We will also be working closely with the Teradata engineering teams on jointly engineered solutions that optimize the integration points with Apache Hadoop.

Commentary

• From Hortonworks perspective this deal is weaker than the Oracle-Cloudera deal.

  In the former case, new Teradata sales do not necessary result in new Hortonworks Data Platform installations, while in the case of the Oracle-Cloudera partnership, every sale results in a new business for Cloudera.

• From Teradata perspective, this partnership gives them a perfect answer and solution for clients asking about unstructured data scenarios.

• The announcement is slightly positioning Hadoop as part of ETL process, but is not as strict about this as other Hadoop integration architectures—see Netezza and Hadoop and Vertica and Hadoop.

• Depending on the level of integration the two team will pull together, this partnership might result in one of the most complete and powerful structured and unstructured data warehouse and analytics platform.

I’m looking forward to seeing the proposed architecture blueprint once it’s finalized.

Links

• terradata.com: Teradata-Hortonworks Partnership to Accelerate Business Value from Big Data Technologies
• hortonworks.com: The Importance of the Teradata & Hortonworks Partnership
• The Data Blog: Aster Data Blog » Blog Archive » Perspectives on Teradata-Hortonworks Partnership
• Bits NYTimes.com:Teradata and Hortonworks Join Forces for a Big Data Boost
• GigaOM: Teradata taps Hortonworks to improve Hadoop story
• ServicesANGLE: Hortonworks Announces Partnership with Teradata

Original title and link: Teradata and Hortonworks Partnership and What It Means (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)