Databricks and Booz Allen Team to Bring Unified Analytics to US Government Clients

SAN FRANCISCO, June 12, 2019 — Databricks, the leader in Unified Analytics and founded by the original creators of Apache Spark, and Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading provider of machine learning services to the U.S. Federal Government, today announced the two companies are teaming up to help Federal agencies scale their data analytics capabilities and accelerate AI initiatives across on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments. Booz Allen will integrate Databricks’ product and the open source technology Delta Lake into its Open Data Platform and offer the unique ability to deploy on cloud, hybrid, or on-premises infrastructure along with their expert services for data science and data engineering.

According to a 2019 Gartner survey of CIOs and other IT leaders, ‘When asked what technology areas will be game changers, all industries and levels of government see the top three game-changing technologies as artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (27%), data analytics/predictive analytics (22%) and cloud technologies (19%).’ However, right now the industry continues to see government organizations encounter challenges when trying to pursue these initiatives due to complex security and compliance requirements, poor scalability of legacy IT infrastructure, and perceived risks associated with cloud and IT modernization efforts.

“By leveraging a solution that integrates Databricks’ product and Delta Lake into the Booz Allen Hamilton Open Data Platform, government organizations can accelerate current data initiatives no matter where their data lives today,” said Dan Tucker, vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. “Many of our clients are interested in moving to cloud but leverage on premise or hybrid environments today. The joint solution is designed to improve the reliability and performance of today’s on premise infrastructure and makes future migration to cloud faster and easier because these workloads can also run on the secure, cloud-based version of Databricks Unified Analytics Platform.”

Booz Allen’s Open Data Platform (ODP) features best-of-breed open source software to manage the full lifecycle of big data from ingest to insight. Now Booz Allen can integrate Databricks’ product and Delta Lake with ODP and offer U.S. Government clients the unique ability to deploy it on-premises or onto hybrid infrastructure—along with expert data science and data engineering insights—to help government agencies accelerate current data initiatives no matter where their data lives today.

Through this relationship, U.S. Federal Government clients can rapidly deploy state of the art big data and analytics technology with Databricks’ product and Delta Lake at the highest levels of classified networks.

“Booz Allen and Databricks recognize Federal customers are at varying levels of adoption when it comes to cloud adoption. Together we are providing a solution that is ready now and future proof,” said Michael Hoff, senior vice president of Business Development and Partners at Databricks. “The ability to gain new insights for data-driven decisions is no longer limited by legacy infrastructure or complex security and compliance requirements. Our solution set enables organizations to gain value, regardless of where they are in the IT modernization journey, and it provides a path for continued evolution.”

Databricks and Booz Allen have worked together to deliver high-scale data engineering and data science use cases for multiple government agencies. Customer examples include a government agency working with Booz Allen and Databricks to ingest and transform data from multiple streaming sources and make the data ready for data scientists and analysts in real time. These users perform interactive data exploration and advanced analytics at scale including geospatial and spatiotemporal correlations. Another government agency is working with Booz Allen and Databricks to move an on-premises data lake to a public cloud provider to develop advanced analytics on structured and unstructured data while maintaining sophisticated security controls. This solution lowered infrastructure cost by reducing several million hours of compute resources  for the same workload and also enabled elastic scaling and easier collaboration for users. In recognition of these clients projects and impact in the market, Databricks recently awarded Booz Allen Hamilton as its 2019 Industry Partner of the Year.

Gartner, “2019 CIO Agenda: Government Insights”, Alia Mendonsa and Rick Howard, October 22, 2018

About Databricks

Databricks’ mission is to accelerate innovation for its customers by unifying Data Science, Engineering and Business. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark, Databricks provides a Unified Analytics Platform for data science teams to collaborate with data engineering and lines of business to build data products. Users achieve faster time-to-value with Databricks by creating analytic workflows that go from ETL and interactive exploration to production. The company also makes it easier for its users to focus on their data by providing a fully managed, scalable, and secure cloud infrastructure that reduces operational complexity and total cost of ownership. Databricks has secured investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, Microsoft, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Battery Ventures, Green Bay Ventures, and Geodesic, among others, and has a global customer base that includes Viacom, Shell and HP.

Source: Databricks