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You can never have too much AI! MapR shoves more in data platform in bid to fill 'critical gaps'

Hadoop-flinger aims to win over devs with shiny analytics tools

MapR is to further embed AI and analytics in its data platform, with more support for apps and a boost in data science tools for developers.

The firm, once known only as a Hadoop distributor, has since recast itself as a converged data platform player and today released the latest update.

This is MapR's first 'big' release since its 6.0 last November. In that time the company ripped and replaced its CEO, a move that saw Matt Mills leave in January.

At the time, MapR brought back company co-founder John Schroeder to head up the company - a move that was widely seen as an acknowledgement that it needed to reset the dial, focus more on the product and expand its portfolio within the existing customer base.

Today's update aims to address issues customers have with data analytics. Senior veep for product management Anoop Dawar said that customers had "made it clear that traditional approaches to managing and processing data for AI and analytics leave critical gaps".

He claimed the release demonstrated the "continual evolution" of its MapR platform, which was echoed by senior director for industry solutions Bill Peterson.

"We're closing in on 10 years as a company, and it caused us [to take] a step back, and look at where the market has gone," Peterson told The Register.

He said that the really important part of today's launch is the focus on supporting AI, machine learning, data science and analytics apps through the firm's APIs. Full points there for buzz-word bingo

Examples of use cases include finding fraud on a credit card as it's swiped, using data at the edge, and finding a problem on a manufacturing line and reporting it through not just operation and historical data, but also edge data, MapR said.

Peterson stressed that MapR's aim is to offer open API support, and the business is also aiming to win the favour of developers by offering a wide choice of data science tools and languages.

Node.js and Python are being added today, for instance, which Peterson said was by request from customers. "The other piece is to give developers access to their language of choice," he said, adding that C, C++, C# and Go are coming soon.

"In the way that our API support is for seven or eight APIs, I think we need to be in the same place for programming languages over time."

Elsewhere in the release, the vendor is offering AWS S3 compatibility within MapR, object tiering, and increased security offerings. The latter will include having all security turned on by default out of the box; data encryption at rest; and the ability to audit events as stream.

The latest release of the MapR data platform is entering customer beta and will be generally available next quarter. ®

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