Canadian Enterprise Information Management software firm OpenText Corp. has rolled out an easy-to-implement cloud-based Big Data analytics service that’s designed to allow businesses to extract insights from their data without building and operating their own infrastructure.

Called OpenText Big Data Analytics (BDA), the solution is available now on a tiered subscription pricing basis, billed as an “all-in-one advanced analytics tool”.

According to OpenText, BDA fits the bill for a growing number of organizations that lack the resources to extract insights from the growing volumes of data flowing into their servers. For many companies, setting up an in-house Big Data solution like Hadoop is beyond their capabilities, while existing business intelligence tools simply don’t cut the mustard.

OpenText’s BDA hopes to address this by providing a complete cloud-based Big Data analytics platform that offers high-performance data storage, pre-built algorithms, and customized professional services to help customers get the most out of their data, regardless of where it’s sourced from. The professional services are a standout feature because other platforms only include it as an add-on, Martha Bennett, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. told Computerworld.

“While many vendors offer an element of training as part of the base package, or the offer of consulting services, having it bundled like this is an interesting proposition,” she said.

“OpenText is the only vendor with integrated solutions for advanced and embedded analytics to help global leaders understand and engage their market and customers,” added OpenText chief executive Mark Barrenechea in prepared remarks.

OpenText BDA’s key features include a column-oriented database that the company claims offers one thousand times the performance of traditional relational databases. Meanwhile, the pre-built algorithms provide functionality like profiling, mapping, clustering and forecasting.

OpenText offers various pricing levels for the service, starting at $18,000 a year for up to 50 million rows of data, and $300,000 a year for up to a billion rows of data. The company also offers tailored packages for those who wish to store and analyze over a billion rows of data.

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