There were a few big updates coming out of the big data ecosystem this week.

Symantec upped its investment in analytics by launching an add-on for its Cluster File System that works with HortonWorks’ Hadoop distribution. The result is a product called Symantec Enterprise Solution for Hadoop, which is free for existing customers and can scale up to 16 petabytes. The company lists a number of advantages to its new software, including easier provisioning and faster analytics, as the data doesn’t have to be moved around.

Atigeo is also doing something interesting with big data. The firm launched two new websites that let voters select a candidate, and view their opinions on a specific topic by entering a keyword. Atigeo’s engine then goes through the selected candidate’s social media activity and returns relevant tweets, blog posts and other relevant information. This is an interesting little initiative because it puts the tools that campaign managers heavily rely on in the hands of the audience they’re targeting.

Over in Germany, a little-know startup named ParStream raised $5.6 million in funding in a round led by Khosla Ventures. The company, which recently expanded to the U.S. with a Palo Alto office, lists low latency and high performance as its database software’s key selling points. And that has proven to be more than enough so far.

Revolution Analytics, a provider of solutions and services for the R statically language, has also expanded recently. This week the firm announced that it’s opening up a new office of its own in Singapore, and that the outlet will serve as the headquarters for the entire Asia Pacific region. Revolution even managed to land a big local client by the time the release went public.