To turn Internet of Anything data into usable information
Hortonworks, a provider of open enterprise Hadoop, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onyara, the creator of and key contributor to Apache NiFi, a top level opensource project that is an easy to use, powerful and reliable system to process and distribute data.
The acquisition of Onyara by Hortonworks will make it easy for customers to automate and secure data flows and to collect, conduct and curate real time business insights and actions derived from data in motion.
As a result of the acquisition, Hortonworks is introducing Hortonworks DataFlow powered by Apache NiFi which is complementary to the industry’s major open enterprise Hadoop platform, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP).
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.
According to the Apache Hadoop website, the Apache Hadoop project develops opensource software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing. The Apache Hadoop software library is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using simple programming models; the library is designed to detect and handle failures at the application layer, so delivering a highly-available service on top of a cluster of computers, each of which may be prone to failures.
A new data paradigm that includes data from machines, sensors, geo-location devices, social feeds, clickstreams, server logs and more is fuelling what Hortonworks terms the ‘Internet of Anything’ (IoAT), driving the need for trusted insights from data at the very edge to the data lake in real time with full fidelity.
Many IoAT applications need two way connections and security from the edge to the datacentre. This results in a ‘jagged edge’ that increases the need for security but also data protection, governance and provenance. These applications also need access to both data in-motion and data at-rest, the company said.
While the majority of today’s solutions are custom-built, loosely secured, difficult to manage and not integrated, Hortonworks DataFlow powered by Apache NiFi will simplify and accelerate the flow of data in motion into HDP for full fidelity analytics, the company claimed. Combined with HDP, these complementary offerings will give customers a holistic set of secure solutions to manage and find value in the increasing volume of streaming IoAT data.
“Hortonworks is focused on doing everything possible to enable our customers to transform their business through data-driven insights and actions,” said Rob Bearden, chief executive officer at Hortonworks. “Onyara’s impressive work on security and simplicity in NiFi, combined with their commitment to open source makes for a perfect addition to our technology team.”
Apache NiFi was made available through the NSA Technology Transfer Programme in autumn 2014. Over the past eight years, Onyara’s engineers were the key contributors to the US government software project that evolved into Apache NiFi. In July 2015, NiFi became a Top-Level Project, signifying that its community and technology have been successfully governed under the Apache Software Foundation.
Said Joe Witt, chief technology officer at Onyara: “Nearly a decade ago when IoAT began to emerge, we saw an opportunity to harness the massive new data types from people, places and things, and deliver it to businesses in a uniquely secure and simple way. We look forward to joining the Hortonworks team and continuing to work with the Apache community to advance NiFi.”
Said Alexandar Ryabov, senior director of data engineering at Wargaming.Net: “NiFi addresses dataflow challenges we have right now and provides upside for where we’re heading. It is also a big win for us that it is designed for the global enterprise.”
Added Craig Connell, chief technology officer at Leverege: “The NiFi user interface and ease of extension have made it extremely easy to get up and running and even customize. It is great that NiFi also easily integrates with other parts of the Apache Big Data world like Spark, Kafka and Hadoop.”
