New Open Data Center Alliance Workgroup Will Help Firms Harness Big Data

As financial firms continue to grapple with the challenges of big data, the Open Data Center Alliance announced a new Data Services Workgroup that will focus on big data and content management solutions.

The workgroup will create usage models, which it expects to release in the second half of 2012, to define requirements that address security, manageability and interoperability of emerging big data frameworks with traditional data management and data warehouse solutions.

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In particular, the group aims to accelerate the adoption of cutting-edge database solutions in the industry for near real time business intelligence (BI), and to drive interoperability among big data frameworks and traditional BI solutions.

Based on the usage models, workgroup members will develop reference architectures and proofs of concept for commercial distribution with independent software vendors and OEM partners to test deployments and establish solutions for the enterprise market. The Alliance will also collaborate with the open source community to drive benchmarking suites, according to a release.

Big data vendors Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR Technologies, as well as data management providers such as Teradata and SAS, will collaborate on the project.

"Through our discussions with customers, we have identified a common need for more industry best practices on when and how to implement new data solutions and what critical skill sets will be needed," said Marvin Wheeler, chairman of the ODCA. "By working with end users directly in the ODCA we can share our experiences and start documenting tools to enable more companies to benefit from business intelligence transformation within their enterprise." Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio