Cloudera, Capgemini Partner on Hadoop Big Data Analytics

Hadoop, the open source Big Data platform, has taken another step forward into the world of business information management (BIM) and analytics through a new partnership between Cloudera and Capgemini. The deal, according to the companies, will make it easier for organizations to gain business insights using Big Data—and could help to define a new role for Hadoop in the enterprise.

The agreement combines Cloudera's expertise in deploying and managing Hadoop with Capgemini's strengths in business information management and consulting. The result, the companies say, is a "complete end-to-end solution for enterprise analytic data Management."

The impetus for the partnership is a demand that Cloudera and Capgemini perceive among enterprises for more effective ways of deriving insight from Big Data. In the words of Mike Olson, a co-founder of Cloudera and current chief strategy officer at the organization, enterprises today "are challenged with quantities of data, from a variety of sources, that overwhelm existing systems and demand a new approach for processing and analysis. Cloudera’s Platform for Big Data and market-leading expertise in Big Data, combined with Capgemini’s cross-industry business intelligence, delivers real success."

From a channel perspective, the most notable component of this deal is the partnering of a systems integrator, Cloudera, with a firm that can readily pitch the value of Big Data analysis to enterprise customers. The partnership provides a clear answer to both the "how" and the "why" of Big Data analysis for businesses.

The agreement also defines a clearer role for Hadoop in the business world. Plenty of enterprises already deploy Hadoop in one of its various implementations, but traditionally, business analytics have not been a primary reason for investing in Hadoop, which instead functioned first and foremost as simply an infrastructure for storing large amounts of data. Now, combined with Capgemini's focus on business-data analytics, Cloudera's Hadoop solution will make it easier for enterprises to start thinking about Hadoop not only in terms of servers and storage, but also as an essential part of business strategy.

The partnership, which was announced Oct. 24, comes just before the start of O'Reilly's Strata Conference + Hadoop World event in New York Oct. 28.