Maureen O'Gara

Rackspace has cut a strategic agreement with Hortonworks, the open source Apache Hadoop start-up, to resell its platform.

The two are also going to try to eliminate the complexities and time-consuming manual processes in Hadoop required to implement a Big Data solution.

The announcement says the "joint effort will pursue an OpenStack-based Hadoop solution for the public and private cloud, which can easily be deployed in minutes."

Gartner figures Big Data will drive $232 billion in IT spending through 2016.

Rackspace CTO John Engates allowed in a statement that "Running Hadoop on your own is complex, which is why we're excited about our development efforts with Hortonworks. We believe Hortonworks as a collaborator brings a substantial advantage in technology, services and experience that will clearly benefit customers. We have customers today that deploy Hadoop clusters on dedicated hardware at Rackspace with support from Hortonworks. By joining forces, we intend to turn Hadoop into an on-demand service running on the Rackspace open cloud and in clusters on private cloud infrastructure in our data centers or the customer's data center. The Hortonworks Data Platform packages the open source Apache version of Hadoop. That aligns with our vision of an open cloud future that eliminates fear of vendor lock-in, and allows customers to confidently invest in a technology for the long term."

The pair means to deliver the "gold standard" for Hadoop on OpenStack public and private clouds. The efforts will entail:

• Rackspace releasing an OpenStack public cloud-based Hadoop service that's validated and supported by Hortonworks and enables customers to create a Big Data environment in a matter of minutes;
• Customers engaging Hortonworks to support running Hadoop on Rackspace infrastructure, including its public cloud, private cloud inside Rackspace, and its dedicated servers;
• Hortonworks providing customer guidance and support to customers who want to deploy Hortonworks on Rackspace Private Cloud Software in their own datacenter; and
• Hortonworks and Rackspace joining the technical certification programs for Rackspace Private Cloud Software and the Hortonworks Data Platform, respectively.

Rackspace has been using Hadoop since 2008 for mission-critical uses: its Emails & Apps Division processes billions of e-mails a year to troubleshoot and diagnose customer issues; and its billing department analyzes cloud usage data daily to generate customer invoices.

Hortonworks is a leading contributor to Apache Hadoop and has been partnering with a number of companies, including Intel, to deliver solutions aimed at making an enterprise-grade Hadoop environment that can be deployed seamlessly. Intel is working with Rackspace and Hortonworks to optimize the widgetry on its Xeon platform.