The big data space has been teeming with activity this week.  Several traditional vendors reinforced their commitment to this trend, and two smaller players grabbed headlines with important milestone announcements.

For starters, Cisco revealed that it has acquired a Czech network security startup for an undisclosed amount.   The Prague-based Cognitive develops behavioral software that analyzes the information that flows through a corporate network in order to spot potential security threats.

Just a day after the buy was announced, IBM unveiled a security solution that overlaps with Cognitive’s platform in many regards.

Security Intelligence with Big Data is a data forensics tool leverages technology from two of Big Blue’s existing products to monitor network traffic for all kinds of anomalies, from security breaches to suspicious worker activity.  One of the product’s big selling points is that it can process both structured and unstructured information, much like EMC’s new Greenplum Data Computing Appliance.

EMC’s newest solution couples Greenplum database technology with software from a select group of partners to offer support for the entire big data spectrum. Wikibon analyst Jeff Kelly says that this convergence of information is a trend among vendors, designed to make it easier for geeks and data scientists to manage their workflow.

Over in the startup scene, DataGravity raised $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz and its existing backers. The stealth startup is headed by the founder of EqualLogic, a very successful storage firm that was sold to Dell for $1.3 billion in 2007.

A day after the funding round, Hortonworks announced that it has joined the OpenStack Foundation. VP of business development Mitch Ferguson wrote that the move underlines his company’s dedication to open-source technology in the analytics space and beyond.