EMC today updated its Greenplum Data Computing Appliance (DCA) with a redesign of its analytics-optimized, scalable systems that are used for statistical analysis, predictive modeling and machine learning.

According to EMC, the combination of burgeoning amounts of data, broad diversity in type and structure, and the need for complex mathematics to unlock value from data have overwhelmed traditional architectures and led to emergence of a new class of analytical platforms.

To address these priorities, the new Greenplum Data Computing Appliance (DCA) Unified Analytics Platform (UAP) Edition analytics appliance addresses analysis of both structured and unstructured data together within a single integrated appliance. The new DCA integrates Greenplum Databases for analytics-optimized SQL, Greenplum HD for Hadoop-based processing and Greenplum partner business intelligence, ETL, and analtyics applications within a single appliance. The integrated solution greatly expands the system's analtyics capabilities and solution flexibility at a fraction of the total cost of ownership of competitive "product portfolio" strategies from Oracle, IBM or Teradata.

The new DCA offers the power of a massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture, while delivering the fastest data-loading rate and the best price/performance ratio in the industry--without the complexity and constraints of proprietary hardware. It delivers 70+ percent performance gains over the prior generation for data loading and scanning, and 100 percent performance increases for concurrent query workloads, maintaining Greenplum's standing as the industry's leading analytics performance for large, mixed workloads. Enterprises can grow their DCAs as their demand for processing capacity grows or as their analytics requirement evolves.

The Greenplum DCA looks to provide increased system and data availability through integration with EMC's market-leading storage solutions. Integrating the DCA with EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems provides backup and recovery for Greenplum Database modules at rates up to 13 TB/hour, with services for wide-area replication for enhanced disaster recovery.

The new DCA provides both HDFS triple-redundant storage on direct-attach devices, as well as integration with EMC Isilon Scale-out NAS to provide HDFS storage that also provides data protection using snapshots, mirroring, backup, recovery and replication. Isilon also simplifies data loading and permits independent scaling of compute and storage resources.

"Enterprises looking to make strategic investments in a Big Data platform need to consider the breadth of capabilities required of a complete solution--high speed data ingestion, support for structured and unstructured data, interfaces for data scientists as well as business intelligence users, and the ability to scale horizontally as data volumes grow," said Josh Klahr, vice president of products at Greenplum. "Customers can take advantage of the new DCA to increase the performance of Greenplum Database for best-in-class SQL processing and data loading, and also leverage the innovative capabilities of Greenplum's Hadoop distribution (GPHD)."