Big Data vendor MapR Technologies Inc. has teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer its customers the chance to test drive versions of Dataguise DgSecure, HPE Vertica and Apache Drill & TIBCO Spotfire via AWS on its Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark platforms.

Called “MapR and AWS Test Drives for Big Data solutions”, the offering gives MapR customers the chance to launch, login and learn about its partner solutions for free.

MapR explained that the test drives are sandboxed environments that contain pre-configured server-based “solutions”. The “solutions” can be deployed free of charge and users will be up and running in less than an hour, MapR said. The test drives are designed for “education, demonstration and evaluation purposes”, but of course one suspects MapR is hopeful of reeling in a few new customers through the offering.

MapR and AWS Test Drives for Big Data solutions are powered by AWS CloudFormation, and come with step-by-step manuals and videos that showcase how to use a range of business intelligence, security and data visualization applications alongside MapR’s production-ready Hadoop distro.

The Dataguise Test Drive is a solution that detects and protects sensitive data on Big Data apps. The new solution allows users to fire up a sandbox with a pre-installed and pre-configured MapR and DgSecure, which allows them to learn how DgSecure detects, masks and encrypts sensitive data. The HPE Vertica for SQL on Hadoop Test Drive solution is used to explore and analyze data in Hadoop data lakes. The test drive allows users to create a three-node cluster with Vertica’s SQL analytics database installed, co-located within MapR’s Hadoop environment. Finally, the Apache Drill & Spotfire by Syntelli Test Drive lets users create a dashboard using data extracted by a combination of Drill and Spotfire on the fly.

According to MapR’s Matt Lescohier, senior director of business development, the offerings are an example of the “performance, reliability and scale” of the vendor’s integrated products.

To date, MapR is the only major Hadoop vendor whose distro is available as an option via AWS’s Elastic MapReduce (EMR), the AWS Marketplace and AWS Test Drive.

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