News

Hortonworks Data Platform Update Focuses on Hadoop SQL Enhancements

• By David Ramel
• May 30, 2013

Hortonworks Inc. yesterday updated its open source Big Data platform with an emphasis on faster SQL queries in Apache Hadoop.

The company's open source Hadoop distribution, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) 1.3, is the first part of the "Stinger Initiative," which the company claims will deliver huge performance gains and increase SQL compatibility in Apache Hive, a standard for using SQL-like queries in Hadoop via a language called HiveQL.

HDP 1.3 includes the latest version of Hive, with a reported 350-plus improvements from the project's open source community, consisting of more than 55 developers from 10-plus organizations.

"The vast majority of Hadoop deployments rely on Apache Hive for proven and scalable SQL queries," said Bob Page, Hortonworks vice president of products, in a news release. "HDP 1.3 is designed to improve the performance and SQL compatibility of Hive, empowering enterprises to more effectively execute SQL commands for faster, interactive queries and deeper analysis."

The new release also aims to increase ease of use by allowing Hadoop Distributed File System access from mounted network drives, providing more connections to enterprise data and incorporating improvements to the Apache Ambari management and provisioning solution, such as better job diagnostics, more customization, improved heatmaps and wider support for enterprise database platforms.

The Stinger Initiative, backed by other key Big Data players such as Facebook and Microsoft, includes features such as an improved SQL interface, an updated query engine, a new optimized columnar file format and always-on services such as Tez, a framework designed to improve data processing tasks by improving on the functionality found in MapReduce and Apache Hadoop YARN, the company said.

HDP 1.3 is available for free download.