SAP confirms Altiscale acquisition in cloud analytics boost

SAP has confirmed its acquisition of US-based Big Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) start-up, Altiscale, after reportedly pumping more than $US125 million into the company.

The announcement follows weeks of speculation, during which both companies remained tight-lipped. However, on September 27, SAP and Altiscale jointly confirmed the acquisition, with SAP hailing the move as a “natural fit”.

Altiscale, based in Californian tech-hub, Palo Alto, employes cloud-based versions of Hadoop and Spark open source software to analyse, store, and process data in the cloud. According to SAP, Altiscale’s offering will complement its existing Big Data services.

“Altiscale has focused on cloud and data infrastructure with its Altiscale Data Cloud offering, which starts with a highly optimised cloud infrastructure, continues with a Spark and Hadoop data platform,” SAP vice-president and head of cloud platform and data management, Ken Tsai, said in a statement.

“Altiscale is a natural fit for SAP, as we share our overall focus of helping enterprises derive business value from data – and successfully leverage Big Data,” he said.

“Since Altiscale is a leader in Big Data-as-a-Service based on Hadoop and Spark, it enables SAP to drive end-to-end value in Big Data across the technology, data platform, PaaS, analytics, and application stack,” he said.

Altiscale, which was founded in 2012, will now operate as a focused and integrated BDaaS offering from SAP to help “accelerate and operationalise” the company’s Big Data deployment.

Among the key factors that prompted SAP to acquire Altiscale were the start-up’s established customer-base, and the company’s potential to provide solutions outside of SAP’s Big Data strategy, in areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT), business networks, and line-of-business (LoB) cloud apps.

According to Tsai, the combination of Altiscale’s offering and SAP’s existing SAP HANA Vora Big Data processing capabilities will enable the company to provide a “holistic and accelerated Big Data solution”.

“Altiscale’s Hadoop-as-a-Service (HaaS) capabilities enable SAP to offer a much more comprehensive and robust enterprise solution that meets the unique needs of customers on their digital transformation journey,” Tsai said.

For Altiscale CEO, Raymie Stata, the deal represents an opportunity to provide customers with a complete, end-to-end suite of Big Data solutions.

“The opportunity to complete the vision by adding fully managed Hadoop and Spark in the cloud was just too powerful to pass up for both companies. We found in each other an ideal partner,” Stata said.

The two companies are currently working to synchronise their technology, products, and market perspectives, with SAP set to systematically evolve the Altiscale Data Cloud offering for integration into its broader product portfolio.

“In addition to being a business unit at SAP, Altiscale will work across SAP solutions and family of companies to help drive data and platform strategy,” Stata said.