Intel Software Suite Launch Targets Big Data Analytics

One year after it unveiled its own distribution of the Apache Hadoop, chip giant Intel has introduced a suite of open-source software.

Intel’s software suite is designed to make it easier for organisations to gain actionable insight from their big data environments.

Data Platform

The Intel Data Platform expands on the chip maker’s Hadoop distribution by giving enterprises tools to improve reliability and security in their environments, while also offering new data processing capabilities around streaming data, interactive and iterative analytics, and graphs. The software gives businesses tools to gain value from the massive amounts of data they’re collecting that they couldn’t do alone with Apache Hadoop, according to Intel officials.

The goal is essentially to give organisations an operating system for their big data environments, said Boyd Davis, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Datacenter Software Division.

“As big data shifts from hype to reality, Intel is helping to break down the barriers to adoption by easing complexity and creating more value,” Davis said in a statement. “Much like an operating system for big data processing, the Intel Data Platform supports a wide variety of applications while providing improved security, reliability and peace of mind to customers using open source software.”

The chip maker’s introduction in February 2013 of the Intel Distribution for Apache Hadoop not only helped the company to extend the reach of is growing software business, but also gave it an avenue into the booming big data market and another way of moving Xeon server processors. The company’s Hadoop distribution is optimised for Xeon.

Intel since that time has hung more capabilities on the distribution, including the introduction of Intel Manager for Apache Hadoop. The expanded management capabilities introduced 13 February with Intel Data Platform and an accompanying analytics toolkit brings the company into closer competition with the likes of Cloudera, SAS and Hortonworks.

Data Analytics

Intel officials are using the work the company is doing with China Mobile Guangdong, a Chinese communications services provider, and retailer Living Naturally as examples of how Intel is helping businesses manage and analyse their growing amount of data. China Mobile Guangdong leveraged Intel’s hardware and software to speed up the retrieval of billing records. Living Naturally used Intel’s Hadoop distribution to develop algorithms to analyse internal and external data to help stores better manage inventories.

In addition, Cray last year expanded its offerings for big data workloads in the high-performance computing arena by launching CS300 supercomputers that include Intel’s Hadoop distribution, along with a Linux operating system and Cray’s Advanced Cluster engine management software.

Intel will release the Data Platform in the second quarter, and it will come in two versions. The Enterprise Edition will include all the capabilities as a free software offering to organisations that can support it themselves. The Premium Edition will be available on an annual subscription basis and will include such additional support features as enhanced automation, proactive security fixes and alerts, feature enhancements and life technical support via the telephone, according to Intel officials.

The algorithms in Intel’s Data Platform toolkit will help businesses create graph analytics and predictive modelling capabilities to gain insights from their data, according to officials.

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Originally published on eWeek.