Open source business intelligence provider JasperSoft is among the many software vendors looking to help companies derive value from Big Data information. The new JasperSoft 4.5 release isn’t just about connecting to Big Data, it’s about analyzing the data quickly.
Mike Boyarski, director of product marketing at JasperSoft, explained to InternetNews.com that analytics solutions typically connect to Big Data framework Apache Hadoop via the Hive interface. Hive provides a SQL layer for Hadoop, using a syntax familiar to enterprises. A problem with Hive is that it can add latency, slowing the analytics process.
JasperSoft 4.5 takes a new approach to connecting to Hadoop data. Instead of getting at the data via Hive, JasperSoft uses the HBase layer. The end result, according to Boyarski, is that users no longer need to wait long periods of time during data analysis.
“HBase does not have a SQL interface, so it’s different but we’re able to pass query parameters and filters to the storage engine and get results,” Boyarski said. “Based on those results we can then format the data so that someone can make sense of it.”