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WASHINGTON — Teradata (NYSE: TDC), a provider of analytic data solutions, has introduced the Teradata Unified Data Environment and the Unified Data Architecture, which feature new software and hardware technology for handling all types of data.
The new Teradata Unified Data Environment is a framework for addressing all types of data and multiple Teradata systems. The Teradata Unified Data Architecture leverages Teradata Aster, and open-source Apache Hadoop, to enable business users to ask any question, against any data, with any analytic, at any time, the company said. The announcement includes new software (Teradata Viewpoint, Teradata Connector and Teradata Vital Infrastructure), and new hardware (Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance 2700 and the recently announced Teradata Aster Big Analytics Appliance).
Moreover, using the Teradata Unified Data Architecture, enterprise organizations can access all their data in an integrated and dynamic Teradata Unified Environment. Teradata made these announcements at its Teradata Partners user conference here Oct. 22.
“The Teradata Unified Data Architecture becomes the new normal, because its value to organizations is more than the sum of the individual technologies,” said Scott Gnau, president of Teradata Labs, in a statement. “The Teradata Unified Data Architecture, with best-in-class technology, provides business users fast and seamless answers to their questions regardless of the type of data analyzed.”
Teradata officials said organizations face obstacles in building effective unified environments, and providing access to timely business insights can be problematic. In response, Teradata introduced the Teradata Unified Data Architecture, which brings together multiple technologies including Aster SQL-MapReduce, Aster SQL-H and best-of-breed partner tools into a single architecture.
Building Unified Environments
“As Apache Hadoop moves from early adopters to the mainstream, organizations require enterprise-class, unified system management and the ability to tightly integrate with their existing analytical tools to ensure success,” Rob Bearden, Hortonworks CEO, said in a statement. “The combination of Teradata’s world-class data management and analytics capabilities, with the unmatched reliability of Hortonworks Data Platform, provides a truly unified, high-performance big data analytics architecture for the enterprise.”
Teradata Viewpoint, a key part of the announcement, is a Web-based interface for system management and monitoring that makes Teradata and Teradata Aster databases easier to manage. The same support for manageability will be available for Hadoop in early 2013. Teradata Viewpoint is a single interface enabling IT professionals to manage and monitor the entire Teradata Unified Data Architecture. It offers a comprehensive suite of portlets that monitor multiple systems, while offering useful and actionable monitoring and management information to all users, Teradata said.
The Teradata Connector for Hadoop supports Hortonworks and Cloudera. The new data connector allows for the transparent, seamless movement of data in and out of Hadoop, where it can be stored and refined. Customers will now have a choice between the two leading commercial distributions of Hadoop, Hortonworks and Cloudera.
And the Teradata Vital Infrastructure manages the entire Teradata Unified Data Architecture and provides new support capabilities for Teradata Aster Database and Hadoop. The Teradata Vital Infrastructure ensures reliability by proactively monitoring events, and identifying risks and system faults. Company officials said it can discover up to 70 percent of the incidents before the customer does. It automatically sends alerts to Teradata Customer Service representatives, who then take appropriate action.
Meanwhile, the Teradata Unified Data Architecture helps users manage and analyze large volumes of complex data. Within the Teradata Unified Data Architecture, Teradata will deliver two workload-specific appliances. The Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance 2700 delivers up to two times the performance and up to four times higher data loading performance of the previous version. The Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance is designed to optimize the Teradata Database, multi-core Intel processors, compression engines, enterprise-class disk drives and the storage subsystem to deliver high-performance analytics. Setup is not required; this analytic powerhouse comes ready to run, the company said. It can be configured from 7 terabytes up to 82TB of uncompressed user data per cabinet. The appliance will be available by the end of first quarter 2013.
The Teradata Aster Big Analytics Appliance, introduced Oct. 17, provides the ability to combine Teradata Aster and Hadoop servers in a single integrated and optimized cabinet. Unlike other appliances in the market, which require specialists and separate interfaces to access and analyze data in Hadoop, the new Aster appliance provides an enterprise-ready solution. This platform integrates the Aster Database, Aster SQL-MapReduce and Apache Hadoop distributed by Hortonworks, all within a single interface to manage and analyze structured and unstructured data. It can be configured to store a maximum of 5 petabytes of uncompressed user data for Aster and up to 10PB of uncompressed user data for Hadoop. This appliance is available now.
Customers can benefit from open-source Apache Hadoop without deploying the Teradata Aster Big Analytics Appliance, because Apache Hadoop easily fits within the flexible Teradata Unified Data Environment, the company said.
“Big data is not about getting new technology,” said Mark Beyer, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement. “It’s not about using old technology. Big data is about figuring out how to create a common set of instructions and semantics to manage disparate engineering solutions, old and new, as if they are one environment—it is the new normal.”
Benefits of Big Data Technologies
There are many industry examples that demonstrate how integration of big data technologies can be beneficial. For example, industries as diverse as health care, communications, retail and financial services realize that as they try to harness value from their customer data they are faced with multiple system decisions to address various data types. By integrating customer behavior, data across all channels, including in-branch or store visits, use of the call center, raw Web log data and online transactions, companies can have a complete view at a detailed level. For instance, the discovery of the behavior patterns that lead to customer defection can be used as the bases for action to retain profitable customers. The real benefit comes when the data from all sources is combined for analysis and a clear picture emerges of which customers are profitable, their likely risk of defection and the appropriate action to take to retain them, Teradata said. This is all possible with the Teradata Unified Data Architecture, which captures, refines and stores detailed data in Hadoop. Subsequent analysis can then be performed for the discovery of new insights by Teradata Aster. And then, the resulting intelligence is made available by the Teradata database for use across the enterprise.
Teradata also beefed up its consulting practice with customized consulting services. Teradata Consulting Services support customers as they build out analytics environments. Using best practices from around the world, Teradata Consulting addresses the information, application and systems components that are needed to design an effective data warehouse architecture to meet an organization’s business needs. The result is a custom solution architected specifically for the organization, which enables them to gain the greatest value from traditional and new data types. Within the Teradata Unified Data Architecture, Teradata unifies all forms of data into an architecture that enables business insights from across the enterprise. Teradata Consulting Services has more than 25 years of global experience in software and consulting engagements, the company said.