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Opscode, a provider of IT automation solutions, announced that Infochimps, a CSC big data business and a provider of cloud-based big data services for the enterprise, has automated its Infochimps Cloud for Big Data with Opscode Enterprise Chef.
Using Enterprise Chef, Infochimps has automated configuration management and application delivery for its big data platform, enabling the information analytics innovator to go from zero to full production for its customers in less than six hours.
Infochimps Cloud for Big Data combines real-time, query-based, and Hadoop and batch analytics to solve a wide range of enterprise data challenges. The company’s fully managed big data solution eliminates the burden of infrastructure management and integrates with any data center, private cloud and public cloud. To build, manage and deliver its comprehensive data solutions, Infochimps deployed the hosted version of Enterprise Chef to ensure maximum speed and flexibility in meeting customer needs.
“Delivering a managed service as data-intensive as ours makes automation critical, since we have to get up and running quickly regardless of customer environment or specifications,” said Flip Kromer, head of Technology & Architecture at Infochimps, in a statement. “Enterprise Chef’s declarative model lets us make a high-level blueprint of any infrastructure and easily custom-fit our big data platform to our clients’ needs—all with a super-reliable code base that’s versioned and repeatable.”
In a blog post about Infochimps’ use of Chef, Lucas Welch, director of communications at Opscode, said, “Infochimps is a company of super smart people helping their customers get way more out of business info than ever before. They do this using Hadoop (for batch analytics), Storm+Trident (for real-time streaming), and HBase and Elasticsearch (for scalable queries)—plus about four dozen supporting systems behind the scenes—all scaled across hundreds of machines. Oh, and that’s for each client. It’s fundamentally impractical to run infrastructure at this scale without an automation framework.”
Welch added that thanks to Enterprise Chef and Infochimps’ own open-source orchestration tool, Ironfan, they can do what they do in style.
Integrating Enterprise Chef and Ironfan, the company has automated the entire compute stack for its cloud-based big data platform. With Chef and Ironfan, Infochimps can install its services in any client’s IT environment, whether physical servers, virtualized resources, or private or public cloud. Using Chef Cookbooks to automate resource configuration and Ironfan for resource deployment, Infochimps can deliver big data stacks in just hours, enabling the company’s customers to access actionable data intelligence quickly.
“Infochimps’ approach to big data makes a ton of sense—use Chef and the cloud to eliminate the infrastructure burden for clients and then give them unlimited flexibility to analyze and act on their business information,” said Adam Jacob, chief development officer at Opscode, in a statement. “I also love that Infochimps are big Chef Community contributors, beginning with Ironfan and stretching into Cookbooks and much more.”
Earlier this month, Opscode announced substantial momentum for its European operations. Opscode’s year-over-year European revenue grew more than 400 percent since October 2012, with Klarna, PaddyPower and Schuberg Philis among nearly 100 European companies using Enterprise Chef as their primary information technology automation platform for infrastructure and applications, the company said.
“The enterprise shift to the digital world as the primary touch point for customers is a global phenomenon across all industries,” said Barry Crist, CEO of Opscode, in a statement. “To compete in this new landscape where speed is the primary currency, IT organizations must automate the management and delivery of infrastructure and applications. Chef adoption, powered by our extraordinary community, has surged over the past twelve months across the European technology landscape.”