Talend Takes Its Data Integration Capabilities To The Cloud

Data integration software developer Talend will shortly begin offering a cloud version of its technology targeting cloud and hybrid integration projects, the first step in what a Talend executive said will be a "cloud first" approach to new product development.

The first service, Talend Integration Cloud for SaaS, will be available early in the second quarter with Hybrid and Elastic editions available in June, said Chief Marketing Officer Ashley Stirrup in an interview.

"We think there will be a lot of interest in this across the board," Stirrup said of the new service, citing both large businesses and SMB companies that are wrestling with data integration issues.

[Related: Talend 5.6 Takes World By Storm In New Big Data Software Release]

Businesses will be storing 40 percent of their data in the cloud by 2018, according to a survey Talend recently conducted of more than 100 IT managers and directors. The survey also found that use of cloud business intelligence systems would grow from 19 percent currently to 73 percent in three years.

Integrating data between cloud applications, and between cloud and on-premise applications, is frequently a major challenge for businesses that adopt cloud technology. "It's always a big hurdle for companies getting started with enterprise cloud applications," Stirrup said.

Talend develops open-source and commercial software for data and application integration, data quality management, master data management and other tasks. Talend, founded in France and now based in Redwood City, Calif., launched a channel program in Europe earlier this month and plans a similar initiative in North America by next year.

Talend Integration Cloud will be hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), available as a multitenant service, although the integration jobs themselves can run on-premise behind a company's firewall. That will afford customers more flexibility with capacity, Stirrup said, pointing to the example of retailers who need more data integration capacity during the holiday shopping season.

The service also will have built-in data-quality-management capabilities. Initially it will support batch-processing tasks, but Stirrup said it would include realtime processing capabilities by the end of this year.

The service will offer an alternative to traditional on-premise data warehouse systems by providing a way to feed data from cloud applications, such as Salesforce, NetSuite and Marketo, to cloud-based data analysis tools, such as AWS RedShift and Salesforce Wave, Stirrup said.

Talend's channel partners can take the service to market, according to Stirrup, with solution providers and systems integrators adding it to their data integration practices. The company also plans to enlist cloud application developers who can build the service into their offerings on an OEM basis.

While Talend Integration Cloud should bring new customers to Talend, Stirrup said the service would help the vendor "expand our footprint within [existing] customer businesses" as those businesses expand their use of cloud services.

The SaaS edition of Talend Integration Cloud, for cloud-to-cloud integration, will be priced starting at $1,000 per month based on the workload and the number of users. The Hybrid that connects cloud and on-premise systems will start at $2,000 per month, while the Elastic edition that can scale out will start at $4,500 per month. From now on, Talend will take a cloud-first approach to developing new products, Stirrup said, adding: "It's a logical next step, but very strategic."

PUBLISHED MARCH 31, 2015