Hadoop, Search, and Business
July 8, 2011
We have had a theory that the NoSQL data management systems were poised to make search a component of their systems. There was the repositioning of MarkLogic’s XML server as a search engine. But MarkLogic is not an open source centric company in my opinion.
However, we noted an interesting perspective on the Open Source data analytics tool Hadoop. eWeek.com’s article “Linux, Open Source & Ubuntu: Hadoop Data Analytics: 10 Reasons Why It’s Important for Business” was thought provoking.
Created by Apache Chairman Doug Cutting, Hadoop has since resided at Yahoo! Now, it plans move to the startup Hortonworks, which is funded by Yahoo! and Benchmark Capital. Writer Chris Preimesberger remarks,
Apache Hadoop is an open-source software framework built in Java that works with distributed data-intensive applications. It enables applications to scale securely in order to handle thousands of nodes and petabytes of data. More and more businesses are finding out that they need to analyze their stored data to help them make better business decisions. A number of Hadoop distributions are now available.
He presents his ten reasons in slideshow format. They include such persuasive points as “Hadoop Is No Longer a Science Experiment,” “Hadoop Was a Key Part of IBM’s Watson,” and “Hadoop Knows It Still Needs to Improve.” Do see the article for the complete list.
We agree, but we think that there is a larger movement taking place. The companies which are cloud centric, based on open source technologies like Hadoop, and providing access to structured and unstructured data may pose a challenge to traditional enterprise search and business intelligence vendors relying on relational data management systems.
The mini trend is an interest in reducing costs and complexity. The cloud may not be an ideal solution, but when data management, findability, and reduced headcount become available, we think quite a few organizations will shift their approach to search.
Oracle and other data management outfits may need to consider these reasons and take action. Open source search vendors may find themselves squeezed by open source vendors once considered partners or benign organizations. Now we think the landscape is shifting.
Cynthia Murrell July 8, 2011
You can read more about enterprise search and retrieval in The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, published by Pandia in Oslo, Norway, in June 2011.
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