News

Precog Launches Beta Platform Aimed at Big Data Developers

• By David Ramel
• October 12, 2012

Precog recently announced the launch of its big data infrastructure platform in public beta, aiming to simplify the capture, storage and analysis of large amounts of data by developers through the use of cloud-based APIs.

Coming off a private beta launched in May, the platform "eliminates the need for development teams to learn Hadoop and related complex data storage and analysis technologies, freeing them to focus on core application functionality," according to the company.

The company said development teams can use Precog to more quickly build applications to capture and handle big data without having to worry about the difficulty of custom infrastructure development and the time commitment it takes.

Precog features are exposed by embeddable cloud APIs that are available for data ingestion, data analysis, data integration, security and accounts. The APIs let developers more easily "package Precog-powered analysis into third-party applications and to load Precog with data from third-party sources, including external APIs (Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce), CSV files, Web sites, and transactional data stored in existing databases (SQL, Hadoop, MongoDB)," the company said.

Developers can transparently run in production the statistical models, complex analytical calculations or aggregations developed by data scientists, which facilitates the the addition of new features into applications or workflow automation, the company said.

"By making it easy for development teams to build advanced big data capabilities into their applications, Precog is powering a new generation of highly sophisticated applications that are poised to unlock the big data puzzle," said company CEO John A. De Goes.

Developers can use Precog to analyze data in three main ways, the company's Web site developer page states. First, Precog functionality is exposed through the REST-based APIs, either by using a command-line tool such as Curl or through HTTP libraries. The second way is through the use of a list of client libraries developed for JavaScript and PHP. Developers can get these client libraries through a public Github repository. The third way is through a GUI-based IDE named Labcoat.

Precog uses an open source, declarative query language called Quirrel.

Pricing plans range from a free starter version designed specifically for developers through a platinum version that costs $12,000 or more per month.