BIG DATA WITH BULLION

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1 BIG DATA WITH BULLION SEPTEMBER 2014 The success of a Big Data project depends on many different factors: how clear your business goals are, the quality of your project teams, senior management involvement... But the performance, scalability and reliability of the solution depends largely on the infrastructure on which it runs. St EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 THE FOUR FORMS OF BIG DATA 3 THE DATA WAREHOUSE IS NOT OBSOLETE 4 BULLION: THE IDEAL PLATFORM FOR 5 IN-MEMORY 5 AND FOR OTHER FORMS OF BIG DATA 6 BULL : WORKING WITH YOU 7

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Big Data may promise to transform into gold the mountains of data that we increasingly see being accumulated in businesses. But the gold rush that this creates can sometimes lead to confusion. Hidden behind the 3Vs of Big Data Volume, Velocity and Variety lie specific issues that are unique to each organization. These can be classified into four broad categories: the original Big Data, as used by the major Internet players; business-oriented Big Data, which boosts the management capabilities of the business by significantly reducing access times; real-time information detection; and the management of complex events. So, a successful Big Data project depends not just on setting clear objectives, but also on having access to an infrastructure that is capable of meeting the challenges. In all cases, bullion delivers the essential power, reliability and scalability needed for Big Data. Its computing capacity, memory (expandable up to 24TB) and RAS features make it the ideal platform for In-Memory computing, to enable the successful implementation of business-oriented Big Data. And Bull, in collaboration with its partners, provides a comprehensive set of services for bullion to help ensure that Big Data creates real value for the organization. 2 Big Data with bullion

3 THE FOUR FORMS OF BIG DATA In every sector of the economy, businesses are finding that they can benefit enormously from the wealth of valuable information available to them, as long as they can meet the challenges of Big Data: the 3Vs, volume, velocity and variety. But these challenges do not occur everywhere in the same way, and so the same tools are not necessarily needed to tackle them. At the moment Big Data as defined by the McKinsey Global Institute datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and analyze can be categorized into four main families: 1. Original Big Data, as practised by the major Internet players, which technologies such as Hadoop have been developed to exploit. This is all about extracting new information about the environment in which the organization operates (customers, competitors, markets...) from internal and external data. The data is structured upstream, to address questions from the business about aspects such as population profiles, behaviours and unexpected correlations... Compared to traditional Business Intelligence, it is effectively a change of perspective. 2. Business-oriented Big Data: provides clear guidance, in a very short time, to allow detail and highly responsive management of the company. In this case, the user defines his or her needs upstream (dashboards, KPIs, price adjustments...), and the data is structured to respond to these questions. Compared with traditional Business Intelligence, this is a change of magnitude both in terms of analysis capabilities and processing speed, enabling unrivaled decision-making and responsiveness. 3. Real-time information gathering: making it extremely quick and easy to find specific information (a particular figure, quotation, document...), in the vast mass of accessible data and documents. 4. The management of complex events: this is all about automatically responding to changing circumstances in real time, by applying richly contextualized rules. These four situations all complement each other, and they may all be of interest to the business, but they inevitably involve different infrastructures, different information flows and different users. So the first step to ensuring a successful Big Data project, is to clearly define its purpose, so as to take the adequate approach. It is also about targeting your infrastructure to deliver whole new levels of power, security and scalability, so it is capable of supporting an unprecedented workload. 3 Big Data with bullion

4 THE DATA WAREHOUSE IS NOT OBSOLETE These four situations all complement each other, and they may all be of interest to the business, but they inevitably involve different infrastructures, different information flows and different users. So the first step to ensuring a successful Big Data project, is to clearly define its purpose, so as to take the adequate approach. It is also about targeting your infrastructure to deliver whole new levels of power, security and scalability, so it is capable of supporting an unprecedented workload. In-Memory: a quiet revolution Halfway between original Big Data and Business Intelligence, business-oriented Big Data usually reflects the priorities expressed by the business. For users, it represents a leap forward in operational terms without having to take on board a whole new way of thinking. This quiet revolution is enabled by In-Memory computing, where a business concept such as price management can become much more dynamic. In the past, you would have needed to build multi-dimensional cubes/data marts to extract this information, after a long processing period. Today, it is possible to obtain a highly responsive basis for in-time interactive decision-making. Better still, we can envisage transaction processing (OLTP) and business intelligence (OLAP) using the same data source in memory to get at the primary data without the long process of copying and ETL processing, and without the architecture latency of traditional databases. So this technology can be integrated gradually, step by step, to take advantage of the new solution offerings. Hardware: one of the vital keys to success Using tools such as SAP Hana, In-Memory computing opens the doors to business-oriented Big Data and to a whole new field of applications. But it is also a particularly demanding approach from the hardware point of view: it requires powerful servers with a very large memory. A large company s data warehouse typically consists of less than ten terabytes of data. To deliver the expected performance, the In-Memory platform should be able to load and process these kinds of data quantities. But sheer capacity on its own is not everything. Because it is intended for operational use, handling sensitive data, the In-Memory computing platform must offer all the necessary guarantees when it comes to service quality and security. And finally, scalability must not be overlooked because, like all innovative projects, implementing Big Data will start with a pilot which must be easy and cheap to expand. Elasticity : - The ability to scale up or scale down resources, whenever and wherever you need them - Adding resources on the fly - Reallocation of resources 4 Big Data with bullion

5 BULLION: THE IDEAL PLATFORM FOR IN-MEMORY Big Data. The very name reminds us how vitally important the issue of volume is. So the choice of hardware environment is one of the most critical success factors. The latest-generation X86 server bullion is the ideal platform for In-Memory uses of Big Data. Unique capacity for business-oriented Big Data and In-Memory computing Available with from 2 CPUs/48GB of RAM to 16 CPUs/24TB of RAM, bullion is the only x86 server that can respond reliably, flexibly and cost-effectively to the specific needs of In-Memory computing applications such as SAP Hana. Assessed to be the world s fastest x86 server according to the SPECint benchmark (16 socket bullion), bullion benefits especially from the contribution of the new Intel Xeon E7v2 processors. bullion offers up to 16 processors i.e. 240 cores in a single server, for outstanding performance. Up to 24TB of RAM a key parameter for In-Memory computing can be added to this. Offering unparalleled scalability, bullion facilitates the rise of Big Data solutions: from pilot projects right through to widespread implementations. With two unique innovations, developed by Bull the new-generation Bull Coherence Switch (BCS ), which allows simple interconnection of up to 16 processors, and the Connecting Box, a column that allows you to connect modules easily and without visible cabling adding more computing power becomes a formality. The same goes for memory and I/O elements: with Bull s patented blade system you can hot add to bullion s capacity, quickly and easily. This means you always have a suitable configuration and it lets you invest gradually, but it also simplifies administration and maintenance to minimize the cost and inconvenience. 100% reliable memory at optimum cost Destined to become one of the key operational business applications, business-oriented Big Data calls for maximum service quality. The new Intel Xeon E7v2 processors provide many RAS features including Run Sure technology, a set of mechanisms that protects the RAM and the platform. Combined with a wide range of diagnostic elements, this enables you to anticipate problems and react appropriately. Bull has added up to several thousand control points per rack, that continuously monitor all key server components to reduce failures and the risk of the system going down. bullion also offers RAS migration and memory protection features, implemented by Bull. For example, the MCA Recovery Execution Path prevents a server crash in the case of a fatal memory error, limiting the impact just to the virtual machine using the offending block. Similarly, if several consecutive errors are detected on a memory card (even if there is a correction on the fly), bullion will automatically migrate it, so that the faulty blade can be replaced, and the hypervisor and OS will be advised not to use those address arrays. Once the memory has been migrated, the blade can be replaced without downtime or the need to double capacity to create a mirror.. 5 Big Data with bullion

6 AND FOR OTHER FORMS OF BIG DATA Thanks in particular to its unmatched scalability and exceptional protected memory capacity, bullion is perfectly well suited to other forms and uses of Big Data. Massively parallelized databases and turnkey In-Memory with Pivotal To facilitate the implementation of hybrid structured data containers featuring both massive amounts of data on the one hand and very fast speed on the other Bull has worked with Pivotal to develop bullion Fast Data Analytics. This is a unified, optimized and validated architecture for Pivotal Greenplum Database (massively parallel, distributed database) and Pivotal GemFire (In-Memory data analysis solution). Turnkey, cost-effective and flexible, Fast Data Analytics reduces the complexity of implementation and operation, for an easy but powerful approach to the world of Big Data. Validated by Sinequa: exceptional real-time search capabilities bullion has proven to be ideally suited to real-time Big Data information mining and content analysis applications, thanks to its exceptional performance using Sinequa s Real-Time Search & Analytics solution. The combination of both technologies has achieved an unprecedented capacity of 100 billion records and a performance of 10 million indexed records. Integrating the search solution with existing data sources is much easier because bullion is based on standard and open components. Managing complex events: a door to the future Enabling an automatic response to any given situation, complex event management promises to be one of the great challenges of the future in areas such as security, finance, customer relations and industrial production. To react in real time to an event, a rules engine cannot depend on the response times of thirdparty data sources, so it has to rely on the information it holds in its own memory. bullion s unmatched memory capacity means that rules engines (such as Tibco) can be combined with exceptional contextual richness, significantly increasing the finesse and variety of conditions. bullion already provides a glimpse of the future of complex event management, and enables the development of iterative pilot projects that allow valuable experience to be gained. 6 Big Data with bullion

7 BULL: WORKING WITH YOU Bull offers a wide range of services to support its customers on all issues related to Big Data, allowing them to make the most of their data. A network of partners Bull has developed long-standing relationships with many partners who are major players in Big Data: SAP, Pivotal, Microsoft... Bull also has a special relationship with the Open Source world birthplace of numerous key technologies, including Hadoop and innovative technology providers such as Tibco and Sinequa. Supporting customers, end to end Bull offers consultancy and expert support to help define the Big Data solution that truly meets the organization s business needs, and to build the appropriate architecture. Specialists accompany the implementation of bullion, to help customers maximize the potential in their production environment. Finally, Bull provides a complete range of services, as needed, to help optimize and run the Data Center. Bull Service Assurance To ensure guaranteed service levels that continually adapt to the needs of businesses, Bull Service Assurance supports operational activities with end-to-end unified monitoring services and proactive support, based on a dedicated organization and industrial-scale services centers. Bull offers a catalogue of packaged and modular services, structured around three areas: unified monitoring of IT services and Data Center management; change management and compatibility services; high availability. Welcome to our Demo Centers If you want to form an opinion on a particular solution, nothing beats seeing it in action. That s why Bull has designed the Customer Briefing Center: to provide a welcoming environment where customers and experts can meet face-to-face and talk to each other. Besides bullion, the Customer Briefing Center has a whole range of hardware from different vendors. Hundreds of visitors come every year, whether for a technology briefing, a Proof of Concept or a benchmarking exercise. 7 Big Data with bullion

8 W-bullionS-BigData-en1 Bull SAS RCS Versailles B All trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Bull reserves the right to modify this document at any time without prior notice. Some offers or parts of offers described in this document may not be available locally. Please contact your local Bull correspondent to know which offers are available in your country. This document has no contractual significance. UK: Bull Maxted Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DZ / USA: Bull 300 Concord Road, Billerica, MA / Bull rue Jean Jaurès Les Clayes-sous-Bois France This brochure is printed on paper combining 40% eco-certified fibers from sustainable forests management and 60% recycled fibers in line with current environment standards (ISO 14001). 8 Big Data with bullion