Storage news ticker – December 4

Airbyte, supplier of an open source data integration platform, announced availability of certified connectors for MongoDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases, enabling datasets of unlimited size to be moved to any of Airbyte’s 68 supported destinations that include major cloud platforms (Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google), Databricks, Snowflake, and vector databases (Chroma, Milvus, Pinecone, Qdrant, Weaviate) which can then be accessed by artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Data connectivity supplier CData Software has been named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave: Cloud Data Pipelines, Q4 2023 report. The Forrester report identified 15 cloud data pipeline providers and evaluated each in the categories of current offering, strategy, and market presence. CData earned the highest possible scores in product roadmap, as well as pricing flexibility and transparency. According to the report, “CData has a strong roadmap focusing on generative AI, AI/ML, data intelligence, automation, self-service, performance, advanced transformation, automated data quality, and predefined data views.”

Data Lakehouse supplier Dremio announced AI-powered data discovery capabilities, delivering GenAI-powered data documentation and labeling to provide business context for analytics, and a unified path to Apache Iceberg (open table format) for all data. It provides one-click command ingestion into Iceberg tables. Dremio can convert raw data (in JSON, CSV, and Parquet formats) from data lakes, relational databases, data warehouses, and NoSQL databases into Apache Iceberg, both in the cloud and on premises. Click here to see these in action and download Dremio Self-Managed Software.

US CSP Net3 Technology is using Infinidat storage. Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, Net3 owns and operates a private cloud, PvDC, with locations in Atlanta and Las Vegas. It has gone from sub-par availability before Infinidat to now 100 percent availability with Infinidat. Prior to installing Infinidat, the performance of the company’s legacy arrays from the former incumbents was only 130,000 IOPS. After switching to Infinidat’s InfiniBox, performance increased by more than 15X to 2 million IOPS. Net3 adopted one of Infinidat’s flexible consumption, pay-as-you-grow models, suited for CSPs, and eliminating the need to put out a large, upfront capital expenditure. Read the case study here.

Informatica has a strategic partnership with MongoDB to create apps powered by MongoDB Atlas with a foundation of trusted data from Informatica’s AI-powered MDM (Master Data Management) system. Informatica already uses MongoDB Atlas within its cloud-native MDM SaaS offering. The companies have  collaborated on joint offerings across financial services, insurance and healthcare to combine the benefits of MongoDB Atlas with Informatica’s MDM and domain-specific applications such Customer 360, Product 360, Supplier 360, and Reference 360.

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Hitachi Vantara announced Pentaho+ for a comprehensive view of unstructured, semi-structured, and structured data data assets, with refined, reliable data necessary for AI and Generative AI (GenAI) accuracy. Hitachi V says it does this without additional integration or coding. It provides:

  • Data Integration and Analytics: Process batch and streaming data in real time using native containerization to support any deployment environment. Pentaho+ can be hosted on any cloud provider platform, at the core and edge.
  • Data Catalog: Pentaho Data Catalog helps discover, identify, categorize and classify data based on business context. An improved user interface leverages the best of Io-Tahoe and Waterline Data technology from previous acquisitions.
  • Data Storage Optimizer: Gain more cost control of IT charge backs, performance, and risk of your data. Data Storage Optimizer now works with all file systems and S3 containers in addition to Hadoop.

Pentaho+ is available worldwide now from the Hitachi Digital Marketplace, its global partner network as well as the AWS and Azure marketplaces.Plans to expand the Pentaho+ platform with additional capabilities for data mastering, data quality, and more can be expected in the coming months.

Cloud data warehouser Snowflake announced Q3 fy2024 revenues up 32 percent Y/Y to $734.2 million, with a loss of $214.3 million; it’s still pursuing growth over profitability. The cumulative customer count grew by 370 Q/Q to 8,907. Its headcount is now 6,793, up by 124 Q/Q. The company is growing, as a chart of quarterly revenues by fiscal years indicates:

Veeam, Object First, and Numberline Security announced the Zero Trust Data Resilience Model (ZTDR) for secure data backup and recovery. It’s an extension to CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model. ZTDR and ZTDR Reference Architecture are said to improve data resilience through:

  • Segmentation – clear separation of Backup Software and Storage layers, creating distinct resilience zones that reduce the attack surface and blast radius in the event of an attack
  • Immutability – ensures data cannot be modified or deleted within backup storage

Voltron Data introduced Theseus, a distributed execution engine claimed to exceed the capabilities of CPU-based analytics systems like Apache Spark. HPE is embedding Theseus in its Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software. Voltron claims AI systems are headed to an inflection point where CPU-based can no longer keep up with GPU-powered AI platforms. Data processing engines must leverage accelerated compute, memory, networking and storage. Theseus is the first distributed query engine built from the ground up to take advantage of full system hardware acceleration (Nvidia GPUs, x86 and ARM processors). It enables data system builders to unify data analytics and AI pipelines on GPUs while lowering vendor lock-in risk, energy consumption and carbon footprint. Theseus plugs into enterprise data platforms through open, modular standards, such as Arrow, Ibis, RAPIDS, Substrait, Velox and more. 

Voltron Data offers a distributed query engine with a revenue share model instead of a pay-per-use model. Partners can build new or enhance data analytics products on top of Theseus so they can go to market faster, and Voltron Data only sees revenue when partners generate revenue.