Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

List: From Tableau to Pentaho and Splunk to MarkLogic.

Big Data tools have been described to me in the past as being akin to painting a wall with a shovel, while this may be the case for some tools out there it isn’t the case for the tools in this list.

The big data market is swamped with tools and it can often be extremely difficult to identify which are the good ones and which are the bad ones, or ones that aren’t suitable to the businesses needs.

Undertaking a proof of concept or using a consultancy can help to identify what tool is the right one, but sometimes help is needed in looking at the broader market and what is on offer.

CBR helps out with a handy list on some of the best tools for developers.

1. Tableau

Tableau has made a big name for itself in the data visualization space but it shouldn’t be considered as something that offers the ability to make pretty pictures from data.

The company’s offering has developed significantly and now offers capabilities that would rival the leading high-level analytics companies.

An active community is one of the big appeals of the company’s platform as it means that help and innovation is never far away.

Key features include an in-memory database and advanced query language. It also supports XML, User Scripts, Python and JavaScript.

2. Splunk

Splunk’s specialty is in getting to grips with machine data, an area which it has been at the forefront of when it comes to tools and capabilities.

The company’s easy to use software means that harnessing the data from sources such as websites, applications, and sensors isn’t too much of a challenge.

Developers can write code using any technology platform, language or framework as well as being able to use tools for Visual Studio for .NET developers to build applications.

Splunk recently updated its Enterprise offering to version 6.4 with numerous updates to platform security and management, interactive visualizations and enhanced analytics.

A plug-in for Eclipse contains a template for building Splunk SDK for Java applications and the company also provides logging libraries to help log activity from .NET or Java application.

3. Talend

Talend, a company with a particular strength in data integration software. The company offers Open Studio, an open source tool which helps developers keep up to date with improvements in the ecosystem, which is supported by a community that helps to advance the tool.

Tools from the company include ones aimed at developing, testing and deploying data management and application integration products.

The company also manages the full lifecycle, even across enterprise boundaries.

Basically if the business is having trouble with integrating data and the developers need tools to do it then Talend is one of the best choices.

4. Pentaho

Pentaho’s strengths lie in joining data integration and business analytics for visualising, analysing and blending big data. With numerous data sources flying around it can be a challenge combining them to get a full data picture, Pentaho helps tackle this problem.

With an open and embeddable platform, the company offers extensive analytics capabilities along with data mining and predictive analysis functionality.

Like the others on this list, Pentaho is supported by an active community of developers, after all, if two heads are better than one then multiple heads should be even better.

Another appealing element is that it offers connectivity to any type of data source, or source of data with native support for Hadoop, NoSQL, and analytic databases.

5. MongoDB

Yes, MongoDB is an open source database but it is ideal for developers that want to have precise control over the final results.

MongoDB offers full index support and flexibility to index any attribute and scale horizontally, importantly this can be done without affecting functionality.

Document-based queries and GridFS for storing files mean that developers shouldn’t have any issues when it comes to compromising the stack – this means less headaches for everyone.

The scalable database also includes third-party log tools such as Edda and Fluentd.

6. Cambridge Semantics

Cambridge Semantics has made a bit of a name for itself by making tools that are extremely clever. The company uses the Anzo Software Suite, an open platform that allows users to collect, integrate and analyse big data to help developers build Unified Access solutions.

When combined with a data integration machine that streamlines data collection and assists with analytics and you’ve got a strong offering.

Key features include being able to combine data from multiple sources and customised dashboards that should make analysis easy.

7. SAP HANA

SAP has a broad portfolio and it has been making a concerted effort to provide its offerings in a fully integrated platform.

The HANA platform’s strengths lie in its in-memory capabilities, which mean that it is extremely fast and can handle large workloads of data in real-time. This is particularly beneficial to developers that are looking for speed to market and are developing applications for Internet of Things functionality.

I mentioned that SAP wants to fully integrate its platform, well the company also wants the platform to become the core piece, a hub if you like, for a wider ecosystem. It can already be combined with the likes of Apache Hadoop and a wide variety of tools are available to use.

8. MarkLogic

If the developers in your organisation are dealing with truly heavy data loads then MarkLogic is a good choice.

With access through real-time updates and alerts, it provides geographical data than is combined with content and location relevance and data filtering tools. Basically a huge amount of tools for those that are looking at paid content search application development.

In addition to supporting flexible APIs such as Node.JS Client API, it also supports NoSQL and it offers Samplestack which helps to show developers how to implement a reference architecture using key MarkLogic concepts and sample code.

9. Splice machine

Hadoop is clearly one of the number one choices in the big data world and Splice Machine has tapped into that by offering a real-time SQL-on-Hadoop database that helps users to derive real-time actionable insights.

The benefits of this should be clear, but it’s basically good for those that are aiming for speedy development.

The tool delivers the ability to utilise standard SQL and then the option to scale out on commodity hardware. Splice Machine offers tools for developers that have found that neither MySQL or Oracle can scale to their desired limits.

Splice Machine is SQL 99 compliant with standard ANSI SQL and can scale up to petabytes.

It also supports .NET, Python, JavaScript and AngularJS.

10. Google Charts

A developer tool list without Google mentioned in it would be a major surprise because of the company’s technological might and ability to offer developers the kinds of services that they need.

This particular tool is free and comes with capabilities that allow for visualising data from a website such as hierarchical tree maps or just simple charts.

Users only need to embed JavaScript code on a website to start using it and it allows them to sort, modify, and filter data as well as offering the ability to connect to a database or to pull data from a website.

The tool offers support to numerous popular languages and it also offers a vibrant community of support.

It should be noted that these are just a few of the developer tools that are available in the market, this is just a snapshot of a wide variety.

This article was originally published on cbronline.com and can be viewed in full here

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