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HP looks to drive Hadoop for enterprise

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Hadoop LogoLAS VEGAS – HP threw its arms around the elephant Monday, announcing a series of initiatives to support the Hadoop open-source data repository at an enterprise level.

For the channels partners, a new AppSystem offering around Hadoop, as well as new integrations with its Vertica and Autonomy software packages may give traditional HP infrastructures partners “a Trojan Horse” into one of the hottest big data conversations, a company executive said.

Paul Miller, vice president of solutions and strategic alliances for the enterprise group at HP, said that while just about every organization is testing Hadoop or has plans to do so, very few are getting to the implementation stage because the management, analytics and other tools around the platform are still very nascent.

“More often than not, customers just don’t know where to start,” Miller said.

By offering Hadoop on an AppSystem appliance, with some deployment and management tools, the company is aiming to ease those pain points.

HP also announced new connections between Hadoop and its Vertica and Autonomy analytics offerings, helping to solve what Miller described as another key Hadoop challenge in the enterprise – the ability to get insight out of the data repository once it’s in place.

Colin Mahony, vice president and general manager of HP Vertica, said Vertica 6 offers “every single piece that customers need to work with Big Data, to monetize Big Data, and to change the way people live using Big Data,” while Autonomy Promote’s Rafiq Mohammadi described the ability of using the company’s IDOL 10 contextual capabilities to “understand the human information” in Big Data repositories, and ease the development of custom apps for Big Data.

The company plans to turn to its core base of infrastructure partner to take advantage of the Hadoop momentum, with Miller saying the packaged approach of AppSystem plus the ability to drive Big Data analytics through Vertica and Autonomy lets partners offer a complete story without building hard-to-find and esoteric Hadoop skills in-house.

“Most of these guys are getting pulled in on Hadoop projects by customers,” Miller said. “This lets them look very smart in front of those customers. They can ship them a complete appliance with the analytics tools and everything they need to get going.”

The company also announced a pair of new technology services around Hadoop:

  • HP Big Data Strategy Workshops: a four-day workshop that helps business build up a full big data strategy; and
  • HP Roadmap Service for Hadoop: helping customer to build a path forward with Hadoop.

Miller said both services are available for the company’s VARs as resold HP services, and that HP will open to them to the channel for delivery when in the future, as Hadoop development skills become more mainstream.

As for air support for HP on building those skills, don’t look for anything in the immediate future. Miller suggested HP likely needed another year or so building its own Hadoop expertise before it could get to the point of doing knowledge transfer to partners.