Aster Data Analytic Foundation:
Supercharging Analytics with SQL-MapReduce

Analytic applications as varied as social graph analysis, fraud detection, and network security analysis require massively parallel processing of very large data volumes. Until recently massively parallel processing (MPP) of data for these types of rich analytics required extremely specialized programming skills - a combination of both deep SQL skills and parallel programming expertise. MapReduce, an emerging standard for advanced analytics, allows for massively parallel processing of terabytes to petabytes of data. However, in its raw form, MapReduce programming is still a significant hurdle for many organizations. Aster Data makes MapReduce accessible to every enterprise by coupling MapReduce with standard SQL, to deliver analytics through the Aster Data SQL-MapReduce framework. Now even business analysts can leverage the power of MapReduce through the familiarity of SQL.

The Aster Data Analytic Foundation Solution

Aster Data's Analytic Foundation provides a suite of ready-to-use, SQL-MapReduce functions to accelerate analytic application development. Time series, market basket, graph, and advanced statistical analysis become as simple as writing a single SQL statement to call the appropriate pre-packaged function embedded within the Aster Data-Analytic Server, a massively parallel (MPP) database platform that not only stores large volumes of data but also processes data and analytic applications in-database to deliver faster, deeper business insights. Parallel performance, big data scale and analytic richness are only a SQL statement away. Some of the advantages that Aster Data Analytic Foundation customers experience include:

• High performance on large data sets: Clickstream analysis that took SQL 6 minutes to run, now runs in 77 seconds with SQL-MapReduce
• Fast development: A 7-step, 350-line SQL query for marketing analysis is now delivered in under 20 lines of SQL-MapReduce
• Richer analytics: Doubling of scope for market basket analysis requires only a single parameter change in SQL-MapReduce doable by any business analyst who knows SQL.

Aster Data Analytic Foundation:
A suite of business-ready analytic functions powered by SQL-MapReduce that run fully in-database

To enable big data analysis in the enterprise, Aster Data Analytic Foundation delivers a unique framework that provides:

• Automatic parallelization for applications running in Aster Data's integrated analytics engines
• 100% processing in database so analytic processing is co-located with the data – no sampling required
• Extensive suite of pre-built advanced analytics functions that are MapReduce-enabled, e.g. time-series, clustering, graph, market basket, statistical analysis, etc.
• Easily usable by business analysts by coupling SQL with MapReduce for ultra-simple formulation of advanced queries

Massively Parallel Processing the SQL-MapReduce Way

The Aster Data-Analytic Server uniquely leverages both MapReduce and SQL within an integrated analytic engine. Aster's patent-pending analytics framework called SQL-MapReduce is unique to the Aster Data platform. It enables analytic applications to be automatically parallelized upon deployment into the Aster Data-Analytic Server. SQL-MapReduce provides:

• Powerful Expressiveness – Dramatic reduction in SQL code complexity and the procedural flexibility to express any ad hoc query using the language of choice (Java, C/C++, Python, Perl, etc).
• Seamless SQL Integration – Users (SQL developers, data miners, business users via BI tool) simply plug in the SQL-MapReduce function in arbitrarily composable SQL code that they already know.
• Re-Usability – Polymorphic re-usability saves significant resource time by avoiding re-writing a new function every time the output changes. SQL-MapReduce adapts at the last possible moment (run-time).
• Scalable Performance – Distributed query planning and optimizations apply the same for your complete analytic application, including custom analytic code and SQL-MapReduce functions, as well as standard SQL, enabling high-speed parallel processing and complete distributed application optimization.
• Fault Isolation – Sandboxed containers and process management ensures strict isolation to prevent any single SQL-MapReduce statement from taking down another (e.g., due to poorly written code).

In-Database Processing of 100% of Analytic Computations

Aster Data Analytic Foundation functions are 100% processed in-database, bringing analysis close to the data. This avoids forced data sampling and the massive data movement required by traditional analytic processing. By pushing analytic processing down, into the database, the Aster Data-Analytic Server is able to efficiently distribute both data and analytic computations across massively parallel processing nodes, ensuring the highest levels of performance and scalability.

Aster Data customers typically see 10x or greater performance improvement from in-database SQL-MapReduce implementations as compared to running standard SQL on a traditional database management system. More importantly, performance is exceptional on terabytes to petabytes of data, which SQL-only systems cannot deliver.

Extensive Suite of Business-Ready Analytic Functions

Overcoming the barriers to advanced analytic adoption means making analytic applications easy to develop and easy to scale. The Aster Data Analytic Foundation provides 30+ pre-defined SQL-MapReduce functions that are fully parallelized and ready to deliver business value.

The Aster Data Analytic Foundation includes many pre-built rich analytic packages that simplify usage of MapReduce. Examples include:

• Path Analysis — Discover patterns in rows of sequential data
• Statistical Analysis — Process common statistical calculations with exceptionally high performance
• Relational Analysis — Discover important relationships between data points
• Text Analysis — Derive insights from textual data
• Clustering Analysis — Discover natural groupings of data points
• Data Transformation — Transform raw data for more advanced insights

Functions from these packages can be used on their own or in conjunction with one another, with standard SQL, with custom SQL-MapReduce functions or with any analytic logic designed to run in-database in the Aster Data-Analytic Server.

In addition Aster Data also provides 1000's of MapReduce-ready functions for the power user. An extensive library of Java and C packages is available out of the box to speed development of custom SQL-MapReduce analytic applications. These packages are available in native development languages like Java or C and do not impose a learning curve of a specialized, proprietary language. Sample packages for the power user include:

• Monte Carlo simulation
• Histograms
• Linear algebra
• Statistics
• And many more

Bringing Rich Analytics to Business Analysts with SQL-MapReduce

Advanced analytics are becoming so critical to compete in today's business world that the barrier needs to be lowered for advanced analytic usage. Aster Data makes it easy to create advanced analytic applications by providing an environment and tools for organizations to go beyond the limitations and complexity of SQL analytics, reducing time and effort to deliver deeper analytic insights such as time-series analysis, basket analysis, graph analysis, and much more.

Analysts can not only easily incorporate SQL-MapReduce functions into complete analytic applications, but function parameters allow for easy expansion of the data scope of SQL-MapReduce functions. Take the Basket Generator function for example. Implemented in standard SQL, a market basket analysis function would require the addition of tens of lines of code to increase basket size for analysis. With the Aster Data business-ready SQL-MapReduce function, Basket Generator, a business analyst can increase basket size with a single parameter change. This dramatically simplifies and speeds application development, putting the power of iterative, ad hoc analysis directly in the hands of the data analyst.

Learn More

To learn more about Aster Data Analytic Foundation, download the datasheet. You can also contact us by phone at 1.888.Aster.Data or by e-mail to info@asterdata.com.

Read much more on SQL-MapReduce on our blog