BlueData

BlueData is a software platform that simplifies the deployment of big data and analytics infrastructure, particularly on premises, by using container technology to deliver a cloud-like, self-service experience. Founded in 2012 and acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in 2018, BlueData's technology, marketed as BlueData EPIC, subsequently became a foundation of HPE's container platform and Ezmeral software portfolio. The product addresses the complexity, cost and time involved in standing up Hadoop, Spark and related environments, which traditionally required dedicated physical clusters for each team or use case, leading to underutilised hardware and lengthy provisioning cycles.

BlueData runs distributed analytics and machine learning applications in Docker containers on shared infrastructure, enabling administrators to create isolated, multi-tenant clusters on demand for different business units while maintaining centralised control. A catalogue of pre-configured application images includes common distributions and tools such as Cloudera, Hortonworks, Apache Spark, Kafka, Cassandra, TensorFlow and Jupyter notebooks, and organisations can add their own images. Data scientists and analysts can spin up environments within minutes through a web interface or API, rather than waiting weeks for IT. A key architectural feature is the separation of compute from storage: through its DataTap technology, containerised clusters can access data in existing HDFS, NFS or object storage systems without copying it, reducing duplication and preserving governance. The platform provides resource quotas, role-based access control, integration with LDAP and Active Directory, and support for Kerberos security. It can run on premises, in public clouds or across hybrid environments, giving flexibility to organisations with data residency or cost constraints. Monitoring and usage reporting help IT teams track consumption across tenants. BlueData was aimed at large enterprises in financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, government and technology that needed to scale big data and AI initiatives efficiently. Prospective buyers should note that the technology now ships as part of HPE's offerings. Pricing starts from around USD 500 with a free trial; there is no permanently free version.