Hortonworks, HP Tighten Relationship With £30m Investment

Hewlett-Packard has invested $50 million (£29.5m) in big data specialist Hortonworks, aiming to extend its own offering of big data analytics to customers.

Hortonworks is famous for the development and support of Apache Hadoop, a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers.

Tighter Integration

Both companies state that the partnership is designed to address the critical big data needs of enterprise customers. They aim to accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Apache Hadoop by integrating the Hortonworks Data Platform with the HP HAVEn big data platform, with HP stumping up $50 million to make it happen.

Both companies will integrate their engineering strategies and go-to-market plans, and HP’s CTO Martin Fink will join Hortonworks’ board of directors

HP customers will the option to deploy the Hortonworks Data Platform as the Hadoop component of HP HAVEn, but it will also be tied into other HP products. HP will also work to certify HP Vertica with Apache Hadoop YARN, the architectural centre of Hadoop 2.0.

“The ability to understand data and put it to effective use is now more crucial than ever,” said Colin Mahony, general manager, HP Vertica. “Hortonworks has demonstrated outstanding dedication and expertise in addressing the business and technology needs of its customers within this new era of information and data, and we look forward to partnering with the Hortonworks team to deliver innovative big data solutions to our customers.”

“We are extremely pleased to work more closely with HP to accelerate our joint customers’ transition to a modern data architecture,” said Rob Bearden, CEO at Hortonworks. “Through deep integration with Enterprise Apache Hadoop, HP customers will be able to easily build their next generation of applications with the Hortonworks Data Platform.”

Hardly Surprising

The deal builds on the 2013 reseller agreement that existed between the two companies, which allowed HP to resell the Hortonworks Data Platform.

“Given the rapid adoption of Enterprise Hadoop as a core component of a modern data architecture combined with the fact that HP is the world’s leading server vendor in terms of shipments AND revenues according to IDC – meaning a significant number of those Hadoop nodes are being deployed with HP technologies – it’s hardly surprising that we’ve been collaborating closely,” explained Shaun Connolly, VP Corporate Strategy at Hortonworks, in a blog post.

We are deeply committed to enabling Apache Hadoop as a comprehensive enterprise data platform delivered completely in open source as the Hortonworks Data Platform,” he wrote.

Hortonworks has other partners: in February, Hortonworks and Red Hat expanded their existing relationship to form a strategic alliance that will include the new Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) plug-in for Red Hat Storage.

How well do you know Big Data? Take our quiz!