HP Discover: HP updates Vertica and Hadoop tools to tackle big data explosion

FRANKFURT: HP has announced a series of upgrades to several of its analytics and data management tools in a move to help firms manage their growing data requirements.

Chief among the upgrades are its AppSystem for Hadoop and AppSystem for Vertica, part of its Converged Infrastructure portfolio intended to simplify and enhance the management capabilities for customers dealing with growing amounts of data.

The AppManager for Hadoop update is designed to allow IT staff to gain better insights into their Hadoop clusters running across numerous nodes, as Paul Miller, the vice president of Converged Application Systems said.

"It offers a complete dashboard to enable customers to manage their software and hardware assets on a single screen, carry out compliance checks on software and firmware and upgrade software across clusters of Hadoop, from hundreds, to thousands, to tens of thousands of nodes," he said.

"This helps customers do things like identify which node has failed or carry out performance optimisation on a Hadoop cluster if the data they store changes."

Tthe AppSystem for Vertica is designed to complement the Hadoop update by providing the real-time analytics capabilities on top of the data stored on Hadoop systems.

"This allows customers to take a building block approach to big data, so they can add as many nodes on Hadoop as they want, and then next to that run the Vertica system to gain insights quickly and simply," Miller said.

HP announced an update to the Vertica analytics platform to 6.1, which offers updates including improved cloud deployment capabilities on any infrastructure, as well as more incremental speed and performance capabilities.

HP has also updated its eDiscovery platform with a tool within the AppSystems environment to make it easier for companies to search and access the data they have stored across their enterprise.

"It can be very expensive and time-consuming if you are compelled to hand over data, say from a legal perspective, if you don't have the resources to do so, as you have to hire in expertise. And that's expensive and a one-time cost with no side benefits," said Andrew Joiner, the general manager for emerging technology at Autonomy.

"With eDiscovery it offers firms the chance to use the tool for business continuity for the information they store and offer the ability to search inside that, and then if you are compelled to turn it over, it's merely a query to extract that information."

Finally, HP announced a Big Data Strategy Workshop consulting service that can help customers identify what they need to tackle big data on issues around archiving strategies, security requirements and data protection.