Cloudera expands partner ecosystem

Introducing Cloudera Connect: Cloud
As Hadoop adoption evolves, so too do the requirements organizations have for big data solutions. Enterprises continue to embrace the flexibility and accessibility of the cloud for mission-critical applications, and companies are now looking to combine the benefits of the cloud with the data processing and analytic power of the Apache Hadoop platform, which traditionally has been deployed on localized hardware. To begin integrating all the capabilities of Hadoop into the cloud, Cloudera has expanded its partner program to include a new cloud services and solution provider division, called Cloudera Connect: Cloud.

"The cloud will play a significant role in the future of the enterprise, and Cloudera and Hadoop are part of that future," said Tim Stevens, vice president, Corporate and Business Development, Cloudera. "We remain committed to solving higher order big data problems for our customers that will enable them to ask bigger questions and derive more sophisticated insights from their data -- wherever it lives -- from a single, unified enterprise data management platform. Cloudera's richly diverse partner ecosystem is helping to provide the innovation and variety that our customers require to solve all of their data challenges."

The new program is designed to meet the growing needs of customer organizations looking to optimize Hadoop deployments in cloud environments, by offering the utmost flexibility in deployment, consumption and choice of vendor for their big data deployments. Bolstered by its integration with a strong ecosystem of leading cloud solution providers, Cloudera will now offer a wide array of partner solutions to support unified data management and analytics in cloud-based environments. Charter members of the Cloudera Connect: Cloud program include:
1. Verizon Enterprise Solutions
2. Savvis (a CenturyLink company)
3. SoftLayer (an IBM company)
4. T-Systems

"For Hadoop to transition into the mainstream, enterprises need to have the flexibility and freedom to utilize the underlying infrastructure that best suits their specific needs, rather than having their data management solution provider be the gatekeeper of an on-premises versus cloud decision," said Amr Awadallah, chief technology officer at Cloudera. "To that end, Cloudera is investing in strategic partnerships with companies that can help to build out cloud-specific feature sets, and we are working with multiple cloud vendors to offer a variety of choices to our customers, enabling them to customize a Hadoop-on-cloud deployment that is ideal for their unique environment."

In addition to the Cloudera Connect: Cloud program, Cloudera will provide support for customer deployments in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud in the near future, and also private cloud deployments through OpenStack and VMware. The company's long-term vision is to embrace a hybrid model, where the Cloudera stack can operate transparently between on-premises, private cloud and public cloud deployments. By bringing together a diverse partner ecosystem, with a plan to roll out comprehensive support for Hadoop in the cloud, Cloudera is helping customers bring Hadoop to more enterprise users and applications. Cloudera Enterprise continues to be the industry standard for next-generation enterprise data management and analytics, wherever data and workloads live.