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Here’s yet another example of the XXX-as-a-Service cloud culture in which we’re now well embedded: Big Data-as-a-Service. Get used to it; BDaaS is going to get more attention as time rolls on.
Startup Cazena, putting a stake in the ground in this relatively new sector, has launched its own version of the service, which provides data marts and data lakes via the Microsoft Azure cloud.
The service, which went public on May 11 and also is available on Amazon Web Services, integrates directly into most enterprise infrastructures; users get on-demand cloud data processing that works securely with their existing tools, CEO and founder Prat Moghe told eWEEK.
BDaaS is beginning to become a crowded room inside the IT cloud services pavilion. Other companies that are providing BDaaS include Delphix, Interana, JethroData, IBM Netezza, StreamAnalytix, Google BigQuery, Arcadia Data, DataHero, Enigma, DataTorrent and several others.
Waltham, Mass.-based Cazena was borne out of data warehousing vendor Netezza, which was acquired by IBM in 2010.
“When we started Cazena, the mission was for us was to make it really easy for enterprises do their big data processing in the cloud,” Moghe, who came from IBM Netezza, said. “Our feeling was that as the cloud matured, enterprises would start to move more of their applications to the cloud. Big data we saw as the next big opportunity, but it came with some serious challenges.
“Some of those were technical, some political, but at least the technical ones we thought we could fix in a platform that would make it all really easy and frictionless.”
Cazena offers what it calls the first “plug-and-play” Big Data as a Service that integrates directly into enterprise infrastructure. Users can securely access on-demand cloud data marts and data lakes without development or disruption to their data flow, Moghe said.
Cazena can access multiple database engines. As part of this release, Cazena added support for the Greenplum Database to its cloud data mart offering. Major Hadoop distributions, such as Cloudera, already power Cazena’s cloud data lake offering.
Having both data mart and data lake services on a single cloud platform provides a complete analytic pipeline for customers, Moghe said.
“We are seeing accelerating demand from enterprises wanting to broaden their adoption of the cloud to data warehousing and big data processing,” Moghe said.
Cazena’s service can bridge gaps between cloud and enterprise, Moghe said. Its architecture uses a secure big data gateway to connect existing analytic tools and systems to Azure without disrupting data flow or requiring a big development project, Moghe said.
Using the platform, enterprises can offload workloads to the cloud, analyze big data sources originating outside their network—such as social media and IoT—and thus drive faster data science outcomes.
Cazena is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. For more information, go here.