infoTECH Feature

August 28, 2015

BlueData Receives $20 Million Funding, Will Collaborate with Intel on Big Data Project

BlueData recently announced that it had received $20 million in Series C funding led by Intel Capital (News - Alert), a VC division of Intel Corporation. Both Intel and BlueData will collaborate on a business strategy aimed at simplifying big data deployments.

Mountain View, California-based BlueData Software, Inc. seeks to close a huge gap between businesses showing interest in big data and actually deploying it. The company cites a study by Intel that found 82 percent of CIOs saw value in the technology, yet only 5 percent use the data in a production environment.

According to BlueData, there are several reasons for this gap. A lack of expertise means it is hard to find competent people to deploy big data solutions. These systems are inherently complex and thus, too costly for many to implement. The average ROI on big data is a lukewarm 55 percent. Security, integration with other data sources and interoperability are also obstacles.

In response to these and other issues, BlueData developed EPIC. One of the performance benefits of this software platform is that it separates storage from computers. The Hadoop and Spark file systems that go hand-in-hand with many big data setups can be virtualized, which means less startup time.

EPIC will leverage Intel’s Xeon processor technology. Intel, which also invested in Cloudera, which develops a Hadoop distribution, and Databricks, a company created by Spark developers, will assist BlueData in marketing efforts for EPIC.

IDC (News - Alert) recently conducted a study that predicted a bright future for big data, in spite of the obstacles that BlueData alluded to. Between 2014 and 2018, the industry is expected to grow to over $41 billion, a CAGR of 26.4 percent, six times the growth rate of the general IT market. If BlueData’s assessment about the obstacles to big data deployment is accurate, both it and Intel are well-positioned to grab market share by simplifying its implementation. 



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