• DataDirect Networks (DDN) today unveiled the hScaler appliance, a significant breakthrough over existing analytics applications. The industry’s first Apache Hadoop platform for Big Data with integration and flexibility optimized specifically for the enterprise, DDN’s hScaler appliance is engineered to enable IT departments to power Hadoop-based analytics without the pain or learning curve which have typically limited mainstream Hadoop adoption in the market.
• A fully-tuned and factory-configured appliance that includes an integrated ETL engine, the hScaler product offers a seamless plug-and-play experience with a single-pane-of-glass management interface to simplify monitoring of the entire Hadoop infrastructure. In addition, by offloading data management functions to highly available storage, DDN hScaler technology delivers much better performance during a server failure as compared to commodity clusters.
• In contrast to traditional approaches that build Hadoop on server-based clusters, the hScaler appliance uniquely combines the highest throughput shared storage, powered by DDN’s unique Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) capabilities, with a robust and high performance server framework. Analytics performance is increased by up to seven times, minimizing infrastructure requirements and greatly driving down TCO.
• By applying DDN’s decade-long technology innovation and expertise in deploying storage for the world’s fastest computers, DDN is resolving key scalability and systems management challenges with the hScaler product, an appliance which is not only IT friendly but also focused on deriving business value at scale.

Precision-Engineered to Dramatically Lower TCO
• DDN’s hScaler appliance takes a unique approach to Hadoop, with a scalable unit design that leverages the award-winning SFA12K platform, a 40 GB/s InfiniBand storage appliance that crunches Big Data with 1.4M sustained SSD IOPS in real-time.
• With four times the density of conventional systems, the hScaler appliance greatly reduces the hardware, data center rack space and cooling overhead. Additionally, by allowing users to scale capacity and compute independently, the hScaler platform eliminates costly overprovisioning to precisely fit workload and budget requirements.
• A highly flexible and powerful ETL engine with over 200 data connectors streamlines data ingestion, manipulation and integration, thereby eliminating programming requirements for data scientists.
• DDN’s hScaler product comes prepackaged with DDN DirectMon software, a powerful, intuitive single-pane-of-glass solution for configuring and monitoring all aspects of hScaler hardware and software. This intuitive cluster management framework simplifies overall administration to further lower overhead and TCO.
• Delivering further peace of mind, the entire hScaler stack is supported around the clock by DDN’s experienced support and services team of Big Data experts.
Availability
• The hScaler appliance is scheduled for general availability on March 31, 2013.