Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Pentaho open sources 'big data' integration tools under Apache 2.0

Tooling related to NoSQL databases, Hadoop and MapReduce will become available at no charge

BI vendor Pentaho is open sourcing a number of tools related to "big data" in the 4.3 release of its Kettle data-integration platform and has moved the project overall to the Apache 2.0 license, the company announced Monday.

While Kettle had always been available in a community edition at no charge, the tools being open sourced were previously only available in the company's commercialized edition. They include integrations for Hadoop's file system and MapReduce as well as connectors to NoSQL databases such as Cassandra and MongoDB.

Those technologies are some of the most popular tools associated with the analysis of "big data," an industry buzzword referring to the ever-larger amounts of unstructured information being generated by websites, sensors and other sources, along with transactional data from enterprise applications.

The big data components will still be offered as part of a commercial package, Pentaho Business Analytics Enterprise Edition, which bundles in tech support maintenance and additional functionality, said Doug Moran, company co-founder and big data product manager.

Kettle's big data features provide visual tools that can greatly boost developer productivity by cutting down on the amount of code they need to write to work with MapReduce, NoSQL data stores and other technologies, according to Pentaho. They also deliver a "super-easy on-ramp" to Pentaho's BI suite, the company added.

The move to the Apache 2.0 license from LPGL makes sense, since major big data projects like Hadoop already use it, said Forrester Research analyst James Kobielus. Therefore, life should get simpler from a licensing perspective for developers running big data projects that incorporate multiple technologies.

Kettle competes with the likes of Talend Integration Suite, another open-source offering that has also added support for big data platforms, including Hadoop.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Apache, Forrester Research, IDG, James Kobielus, Talend
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Apache Software Foundation, applications, data management, open source, Pentaho, software
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Get the Whole Picture Why Most Organizations Miss User Response Monitoring—and What to Do About It
    You can be armed with vast amounts of performance metrics, but if you don’t know what users are actually experiencing, you don’t have the real performance picture. While this measure is critical, it is one many organizations fail to consistently capture. This guide looks at the challenges of user response monitoring, and it shows how you can overcome these challenges and start to get a real handle on your infrastructure performance and how it impacts your users’ experience.
    Learn more »
  • Enterprise Buyers Guide for Application Development Software
    New software delivery models, leaner and faster development methodologies, emerging mobile apps and the impact of open source are all key trends changing the way software will be procured in the future. To help organisations understand this changing landscape and to provide a framework for procurement Computerworld has created an enterprise buyers guide which includes the top technology trends in applications, programming, architectures and methodologies. It profiles the software vendors to watch, addresses the security concerns caused by Web 2.0 and examines the impact of Open Source Software (OSS).
    Learn more »
  • ALM Buyers Guide: A Practical Guide to Choosing the Right Agile Tools for your Team
    This buyer's guide describes the key criteria for application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions for today's high-performance teams. It includes key considerations for enhancing your single- or multi-vendor ALM environment.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.