Hortonworks Brings Its Hadoop Distribution To Windows

Hortonworks said the announcement marks the industry's first Hadoop distribution -- which, until now, has run exclusively on the open-source Linux OS -- that is optimized for Windows.

"For the very first time, enterprise-grade Apache Hadoop is now available on Windows, making the Hortonworks Data Platform the first and only distribution available on Windows and Linux," said Dave McJannet, vice president of marketing at Hortonworks.

[Related: Hortonworks Lets Partners Get Hands-On With Hadoop ]

The Hortonworks Data Platform will act almost identically on Windows environments as it does on Linux ones, McJannet said, but the move will significantly impact the Microsoft application ecosystem, ushering in a new breed of Windows apps that are purpose-built for handling Hadoop-based workloads.

"The really noteworthy thing here is the extent to which this now enables the Microsoft ecosystem to start building applications that leverage Hadoop as a data store," McJannet said.

Hortonworks expects the Hadoop-Microsoft marriage to benefit Microsoft partners and system integrators who build applications for Windows, as it means they can now target the growing number of organizations evaluating Hadoop for big data analytics.

"Those organizations that work and have deep skills on the Windows franchise, and running and building Windows apps, can now deploy Hadoop … and start building analytics applications that meet the needs of their customers, while leveraging the skills they already have," McJannet said.

According to McJannet, deploying the Hortonworks Data Platform for Windows felt like a natural next step for the company, given its focus on boosting the adoption of Hadoop in the enterprise, a space in which Windows has obviously staked its claim.

"This is very consistent with what we have been doing really since Hortonworks' inception, which is trying to accelerate the adoption of Hadoop, in general, by providing a 100 percent open-source distribution that is available on every deployment platform that an organization may select," he told CRN. "Up until today, Hadoop was only available on Linux, and for the entire other half of the server market, around which there is a significant ecosystem, they haven’t the opportunity to run Hadoop on Windows."

McJannet said Hortonworks worked closely with Microsoft to expand its big data platform to Windows, and that its new Windows-ready Hadoop distribution will be available starting today. Hortonworks has previously collaborated with Microsoft, and currently powers the software giant's HDInsight big data solution with its own big data platform.

PUBLISHED FEB. 25, 2013