Hortonworks Explained

Hortonworks, Inc.
Type:Subsidiary
Location City:Santa Clara, California
Location Country:United States
Num Employees:~1,110 [1]
Industry:Computer software
Products:Hortonworks Data Platform, Hortonworks DataFlow, Hortonworks DataPlane
Parent:Cloudera

Hortonworks was a data software company based in Santa Clara, California that developed and supported open-source software (primarily around Apache Hadoop) designed to manage big data and associated processing.

Hortonworks software was used to build enterprise data services and applications such as IoT (connected cars, for example), single view of X (such as customer, risk, patient), and advanced analytics and machine learning (such as next best action and realtime cybersecurity). Hortonworks had three interoperable product lines:

In January 2019, Hortonworks completed its merger with Cloudera.[3]

History

Hortonworks was formed in June 2011 as an independent company, funded by $23 million venture capital from Yahoo! and Benchmark Capital. Its first office was in Sunnyvale, California.[4] The company employed contributors to the open source software project Apache Hadoop.[5] The Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) product, first released in June 2012,[6] included Apache Hadoop and was used for storing, processing, and analyzing large volumes of data. The platform was designed to deal with data from many sources and formats. The platform included Hadoop technology such as the Hadoop Distributed File System, MapReduce, Pig, Hive, HBase, ZooKeeper, and additional components.[7]

Eric Baldeschweiler (from Yahoo) was initial chief executive, and Rob Bearden chief operating officer, formerly from SpringSource. Benchmark partner Peter Fenton was a board member. The company name refers to the character Horton the Elephant, since the elephant is the symbol for Hadoop.[8]

In October 2018, Hortonworks and Cloudera announced they would be merging in an all-stock merger of equals.[9] After the merger, the Apache products of Hortonworks became Cloudera Data Platform.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Hortonworks : Quick Facts - Hortonworks. 15 July 2017.
  2. Web site: Hortonworks upgrades DataPlane Services. 17 April 2018 . April 30, 2018.
  3. Web site: Jan 2019 Cloudera and Hortonworks Complete Planned Merger..
  4. News: Hadoop Big Data Startup Spins Out Of Yahoo . Information Week . June 29, 2011 . Charles Babcock . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20110704055947/http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/database/231000658 . July 4, 2011 . February 21, 2017 .
  5. News: Big-data investors look for the next Splunk . Sarah McBride . Alistair Barr . April 20, 2012 . Reuters . February 21, 2017 .
  6. Web site: 12 June 2012 . Hortonworks Announces General Availability of Hortonworks Data Platform . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120922074628/http://hortonworks.com/about-us/news/hortonworks-announces-general-availability-of-hortonworks-data-platform/ . 22 September 2012 . Hortonworks.
  7. News: HortonWorks Hones a Hadoop Distribution . PC World . November 1, 2011 . Joab Jackson . October 14, 2013 .
  8. News: Yahoo! seeds Hadoop startup on open source dream: Hortonworks hears a Big Data revolution . Cade Metz . June 28, 2011 . The Register . February 21, 2017 .
  9. Web site: Cloudera and Hortonworks Announce Merger to Create World's Leading Next Generation Data Platform and Deliver Industry's First Enterprise Data Cloud. 3 October 2018 . BusinessWire. 3 October 2018.