EMC took another dive into the “big data” processing pool Sept. 21 when it introduced a new analytics appliance that runs on its Greenplum software. The announcement was made at the O’Reilly Strata Conference in New York City.
The data storage provider is positioning the Greenplum Modular Data Computing Appliance as the industry’s first “complete” big data analytics platform that can handle several petabytes of data. This is a plug-in appliance that enables IT shops to combine a shared-nothing macro pre-processor (MPP) relational database with enterprise-class Apache Hadoop in a single, unified box to process both structured and unstructured data.
Apache Hadoop, administered and maintained by the Apache Foundation, is the most widely used big data analytics processing software currently in the industry.
Greenplum DCA modules provide IT shops the ability to start small and expand the appliance network in quarter-rack increments based on processing performance or storage capacity needs, EMC said.
In addition to mixing and matching Greenplum Database and Greenplum HD (Hadoop) modules, enterprises can also bring their business-intelligence applications directly into the cluster, and port them to the same appliance through the use of optional Greenplum Data Integration Accelerator modules. The result is a unified big data platform combining structured and unstructured data and applications in a single infrastructure, EMC said.
The EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance is available now.