Aster Data nCluster:
Ultra-Fast Database for Analytics on Big Data

Massive data growth inside and outside organizations' primary enterprise data warehouses combined with demand for richer data analytics on terabytes of data without sampling are straining traditional enterprise data management and analytic platforms. Delivering the performance, scalability, and ease of use that organizations demand requires a new architecture and analytics platform designed for ultra-fast analytics that easily scale to terabytes of data and beyond.

The Aster Data nCluster Solution

Aster Data nCluster delivers the first data-analytics server, a massively parallel (MPP) database with an integrated analytics engine. nCluster not only stores large volumes of data but also processes data and analytic applications in-database to deliver faster, deeper insights. Aster Data's unique Applications-Within™ architecture uses an integrated analytics engine for advanced in-database analytics to allow any custom or packaged analytic software application to be pushed into the database using Aster Data's SQL-MapReduce framework so that it is collocated with the data. This architecture delivers breakthrough performance and scalability on large data volumes, advanced in-database processing for analytic software applications, and easy development of advanced analytic.

Using the nCluster analytics platform, Aster Data customers report results such as:

• 90x faster performance for queries and analytic software applications
• Efficient, linear scaling of data storage and querying to 100s of terabytes
• Richer analytics than were possible or practical with traditional
  SQL-based systems
• Fast, easy development of rich analytic applications, reducing code by more than 90%

Aster Data nCluster: a massively parallel database with an
integrated analytics engine

Deployment options:
Aster Data nCluster gives you the flexibility to choose the type of deployment that best meets your needs:

• Packaged software: Aster Data nCluster
• Appliance: Aster Data MapReduce Data Warehouse Appliance
• Cloud-based: Aster Data nCluster Cloud Edition

Breakthrough Performance and Scalability

The Aster Data nCluster database is an analytics platform that delivers breakthrough performance that scales to terabytes and even petabytes of data.

• "Always-Parallel": nCluster's massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and In-Database MapReduce enable end-to-end parallelism of data and analytic processing. nCluster parallelizes data loading, querying, exports, backups, recoveries, installs and upgrades to take full advantage of all resources.
• "Always-On": nCluster provides leading fault tolerance and online maintenance capabilities to ensure uninterrupted operations.
• Unlimited Scalability: nCluster's unique scaling architecture provides online, linear scaling across all operations - loads, queries, exports, backups, and recoveries.
• Dynamic Mixed Workload Management: nCluster provides the first dynamic workload management capability for an MPP system that runs on commodity hardware. Automated policy controls ensure predictable performance and guaranteed service levels for diverse workloads.
• Advanced Manageability of Data and Applications: The Aster Data Management Console (AMC) provides cutting-edge manageability of the nCluster platform and the applications running inside through an intuitive graphical interface. From dashboards for at-a-glance visibility to detailed drill-downs for detailed information, the AMC makes it easy to manage and monitor both analytics and data processing.

Advanced In-Database Processing for Analytic Applications

The unique in-database analytics engine inside the Aster Data nCluster analytics platform delivers ultra-fast, rich analytics that scale to terabytes and petabytes of data. In-database processing eliminates the overhead of moving large data sets from the enterprise data warehouse to custom or packaged analytic software applications, providing significant performance benefits. Key aspects of Aster Data's integrated analytics engine include:

• In-Database MapReduce: Uniquely enables rich analytics and ultra-fast processing of large data volumes by automatically parallelizing processing of workloads and analytic applications. Aster Data's architecture combines the benefits of a relational database with the processing power of MapReduce.
• SQL-MapReduce: Aster Data's patent-pending SQL-MapReduce framework makes it easy to leverage the power of MapReduce with the ease and familiarity of SQL. Any analytic software code can be easily MapReduce-enabled and pushed into the Aster analytics platform without rewriting. SQL-MapReduce enables a richer class of analytics applications that are simple to formulate and can be used by any business analyst familiar with SQL.

Easy Development of Advanced Analytics

Aster Data makes it easy to create advanced analytic applications with the nCluster analytic platform by providing pre-packaged analytics functions and tools that go beyond the limitations and complexity of SQL analytics, reducing time and effort to deliver deeper analytic insights in use cases such as time-series analysis, graph analysis, fraud analysis, and financial analysis.

• SQL-MapReduce: Enables developers to write powerful and highly expressive functions in languages such as Java, C, C#, Python, C++, and R and push them into the database where they can be called using standard SQL and leverage the underlying power of MapReduce processing.
• Aster Data Developer Express: A visual development environment for SQL and MapReduce applications that makes it easy to develop, test, and deploy advanced analytic applications.
• Aster Data Analytic Foundation: A powerful suite of pre-built MapReduce analytics software building blocks that can be leveraged by any custom analytic application to accelerate the development of rich analytics applications.

Learn More

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