As day one of the HPE Big Data Conference, held at the Westin Boston Waterfront in Boston, MA, wrapped up, Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, noted that Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) has positioned itself as a company that is strong and executes well. But, the lack of a “breakout” moment at this week’s event was also apparent.

The Big Data drain

Vellante began the segment by saying that HPE is very competitive among the top industry players with its Vertica product that runs analytics on Hadoop. He referred to Hadoop as a “big sucking noise” that is proving to drain IT budgets.

“When it comes to Hadoop, people refer to ROI as a reduction on investment,” Vellante said. He went on to say how Vertica is surviving and thriving in spite of the big sucking sound.

Sturdy and loyal

Gillin said that today he recognized the strength and customer loyalty around a highly engineered product. He also acknowledged that there were not any transformative breakout areas discussed so far at the event, and the hosts concluded that it is the same for most companies in the industry at the moment.

They also agreed that the future belongs more to technology like Vertica that add value to the Hadoop ecosystem.

Will analytics save security?

The conversation also centered around security and how analytics are playing a role in deterring cyber-attacks. Vellante and Gillin spoke about a guest who said that the defenders are getting a leg up from machine learning and artificial intelligence. However, the attackers still prevail, and the hosts believe that analytics could be an edge for users.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s theCUBE guests, Vellante commented on upcoming interviews with Robert Youngjohns and Chris Selland of HPE.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Big Data Conference.

Photo by SiliconANGLE