BlueData Announces Support for Hadoop and Spark on Docker Containers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 4, 2015) - BlueData™, provider of the leading infrastructure software platform for Big Data, today announced support for Docker containers. With the BlueData EPIC™ platform running on Docker, enterprise IT organizations will be able to quickly and easily deploy Apache Hadoop or Apache Spark in a lightweight container environment. Data scientists and developers can now download BlueData EPIC Lite -- a free version of the EPIC platform available immediately -- to spin up virtual Hadoop or Spark clusters in Docker containers on their laptop.

BlueData's mission is to make it easier to deploy Big Data infrastructure on-premises, and support for Docker further advances this objective. Docker is open source technology that allows developers to quickly assemble distributed applications in lightweight software containers, without the overhead of traditional virtual machines. 

As a lightweight alternative to hypervisor-based virtualization, Docker containers create new possibilities to streamline infrastructure deployment for Big Data analytics. BlueData is integrating the EPIC software platform with Docker to provide the benefits of virtualization for Big Data applications, while delivering the simplicity of containers and the performance of bare-metal servers.

"Container technology is disrupting the IT market, and Docker is seeing rapid enterprise adoption," said Kumar Sreekanti, co-founder and CEO of BlueData. "There are now thousands of applications running on Docker, but until today there were only a few applications supporting containers for Big Data analytics. Together with Docker, we're disrupting the Big Data market and leveraging the power of containers for enterprises deploying Hadoop and Spark on-premises."

BlueData tames the infrastructure complexity that can slow down and stall Big Data deployments. The BlueData EPIC software platform works with all of the major Hadoop distributions as well as Spark. It integrates with the leading analytical applications, so data scientists can use the tools they prefer. It runs with any shared storage environment, eliminating the need to move data. It delivers the agility of Hadoop-as-a-Service in an on-premises deployment model, with the enterprise-grade security and governance that IT teams require. 

BlueData is working with Docker as well as Intel and an ecosystem of partners to ensure enterprise-class security, performance, and scalability for Big Data applications running in containers. In collaboration with these partners, BlueData will provide enterprises with an on-premises, multi-tenant solution to run large-scale data processing environments such as Hadoop or Spark on Docker. IT organizations will benefit from greater flexibility, agility, and efficiency in their deployment of Big Data analytics.

"Intel works closely with the Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark communities and their ecosystems to drive the foundation for Big Data and analytics in the enterprise," said Michael Greene, Intel vice president and general manager of System Technologies and Optimization in Intel's Software and Services Group. "With BlueData's support for container technology to enable easier deployment of Hadoop and Spark, we believe BlueData can deliver even greater simplicity and agility in a virtualized environment -- while providing the security and performance that enterprise IT organizations require for their Big Data infrastructure."

The initial BlueData software release supporting Docker is available today as a free edition: BlueData EPIC Lite. With EPIC Lite, data scientists and developers can easily create multi-node Hadoop clusters (including key components such as Hive, Hue, Impala, and Pig) or standalone Spark clusters running in Docker containers. They can point to data in their local files or against existing HDFS and NFS storage. Within a matter of minutes, they can develop and test Big Data analytics in a personal sandbox on their laptop. EPIC Lite is available for download on a developer laptop or as a hosted instance on the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): www.bluedata.com/free

Docker support for the enterprise edition of the BlueData EPIC software platform will be generally available for production deployments in the fall of 2015. In a separate announcement today, BlueData also introduced the new summer release of the EPIC software platform.

About BlueData Software, Inc.
BlueData is transforming how enterprises deploy their Big Data applications and infrastructure. The BlueData EPIC™ software platform uses virtualization technology to make it easier, faster, and more cost-effective for enterprises of all sizes to leverage Big Data -- enabling Hadoop-as-a-Service in an on-premises deployment model. With BlueData, they can spin up virtual Hadoop or Spark clusters within minutes, providing data scientists with on-demand access to the applications, data and infrastructure they need. Based in Mountain View, California, BlueData was founded by VMware veterans and its investors including Amplify Partners, Atlantic Bridge, Ignition Partners, and Intel Capital. To learn more about BlueData, visit www.bluedata.com.