About Aster Data

Aster Data is a proven leader in big data management and big data analysis for data-driven applications.  Aster Data’s nCluster is the first MPP data warehouse architecture that allows applications to be fully embedded within the database engine to enable ultra-fast, deep analysis of massive data sets.

Aster Data's unique “applications-within™” approach allows application logic to exist and execute with the data itself. Termed a “data-analytics server”, Aster Data’s solution effectively utilizes Aster’s patent-pending SQL-MapReduce together with parallelized data processing and applications to address the big data challenge.

Companies using Aster Data include Coremetrics, MySpace, comScore, Akamai, Full Tilt Poker, and ShareThis. Aster Data is headquartered in San Carlos, California and is backed by Sequoia Capital, JAFCO Ventures, IVP, and Cambrian Ventures, as well as industry visionaries including David Cheriton, Ron Conway, and Rajeev Motwani.

The company was founded by three colleagues in the Ph.D. Computer Science program from Stanford University. Mayank Bawa, CEO, focused on algorithm design for querying large distributed data systems. Tasso Argyros, CTO, investigated network and software issues involved in the design and implementation of large-scale data clusters. George Candea, focused on high-availability technologies for large-scale computer systems.

The leading insights resulting from this research combined to form the foundation for Aster's architecture, that simultaneously optimizes across the three dimensions of scalability, performance and manageability. With Aster, systems are as easy to operate at 300 nodes managing hundreds of Terabytes as at 3 nodes managing hundreds of Gigabytes.