IBM Unveils Big Data Analytics Software and Services

IBM launches new big data analytics software and services, Hortonworks advances its Data Platform, and the TACC Longhorn system Hadoop cluster helps researchers data mine for science.

IBM unveils Analytics Services.  IBM unveiled new Big Data analytics software and services to help organizations build and maintain their global workforce. Created in IBM Labs, the software allows businesses to analyze massive amounts of data shared by employees and uncover work-related trends that can be used to build and preserve more productive work environments and minimize attrition. New workforce analytics services include Survey Analytics services, which uses text and visual analytics software to automatically extract and display over one million pieces of anonymous unstructured data derived from employee surveys. Retention Analytics services provide a data-driven approach to understanding attrition patterns within a business. It applies predictive analytics software to enterprise HR and CRM data, and social data, and then identifies high-attrition “hot spots” within the company. Using IBM's acquisition of Kenexa's offerings, the IBM Smarter Workforce initiatives help businesses capture and understand data and then use these insights to empower their talent, manage expertise and optimize people-centric processes. "Companies that invest in Big Data and analytics to nurture their workforce will keep the best talent and distinguish themselves from their competition," said Dr. Bob Sutor, VP, Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences, IBM Research. "Knowing what motivates people can boil down to the data you capture and how you interpret it. Using the insights identified by our new predictive and socially-driven workforce analytics tools, companies can ensure long-term success through employee engagement and meaningful work."

Hortonworks launches 1.3 of Hadoop Data Platform.  Hortonworks announced the availability of the 1.3 version of the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), the industry’s only 100-percent open source Apache Hadoop platform. The new release incorporates advancements from the open source community, as well as the first phase of the Stinger Initiative - an effort to enhance the performance of SQL queries and enhanced SQL compatibility. “Hortonworks is dedicated to working with the community to advance 100-percent open source Apache Hadoop, and the regular cadence of updates to the Hortonworks Data Platform are designed to engage the entire IT ecosystem in its march toward a next-generation enterprise Hadoop platform,” said Bob Page, VP Products, Hortonworks. “The vast majority of Hadoop deployments rely on Apache Hive for proven and scalable SQL queries. HDP 1.3 is designed to improve the performance and SQL compatibility of Hive, empowering enterprises to more effectively execute SQL commands for faster, interactive queries and deeper analysis.”

TACC Longhorn Hadoop cluster data mines for science. Initial experimentation with Hadoop and a later technology grant to build a Hadoop-optimized cluster on the Longhorn remote visualization system, has led TACC (Texas Advanced Computing Center) to offer researchers a total of 48, eight-processor nodes on the Longhorn cluster to run Hadoop in a coordinated way with accompanying large-memory processors.  "Hadoop provides researchers with the first major tool for doing groundbreaking research in the era of Big Data," said Niall Gaffney, TACC's director of data intensive computing. "I am very excited to see its early and fruitful adoption amongst researchers as well as the explorations into how it can be used to take advantage of the world class supercomputing resources TACC provides."