There is a dizzying array of free and commercial business intelligence components available for Hadoop, but Teradata Corp. thinks that the industry could do with another one. The data warehousing stalwart’s new entry into the space promises to make short work of the multi-structured transmissions coming off the connected universe.

The aptly-named Dashboard Engine for Hadoop is the first fruit of the company’s acquisition of Think Big Analytics Inc., a consultancy focused on helping organizations set up custom implementations of the notoriously complex data crunching framework. The tool aims to take yet more of the hassle out of the analytics lifecycle with capabilities for quickly extracting meaning from the data stored in such large-scale clusters.

That’s easier said than done for the business users who need the insight, even with the structured query solutions available from major Hadoop distributors such as Cloudera, Inc and Teradata itself. Dashboard Engine promises to streamline the process with a multi-dimensional analysis component that the company says can ingest terabytes of data every hour and churn out well-organized aggregates at the other end.

That makes the relationships within the raw information more accessible to the user, who can, in turn, make queries with greater ease – and often to greater success – as a result. And that increased visibility has the added benefit of speeding the operation considerably, which is essential for processing JSON transmissions and the the other types of fast-moving data that Terata is targeting with the new reporting tool.

The company envisions organizations putting Dashboard Engine in a wide range of scenarios, including industry-specific use cases. A manufacturer might leverage the technology to quickly make data from sensors on the factory floor available to analysts through their existing business intelligence platforms, while a retailer could monitor how consumers react to changes in advertising and make quick adjustments accordingly. As it happens, that’s exactly how eBay Inc. is using its own recently unveiled multi-dimensional analytics tool for Hadoop.

The beta version of Dashboarding Engine is available immediately. A more stable release is set to come out sometime in the third quarter.

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