Riding on the early success of its IPO, open-source Hadoop heavyweight Hortonworks Inc. has announced it’s extending its partner developer certification program, adding certifications in operations, security and governance for partners that develop software around its platform.

Palo Alto-based Hortonworks says the aim is to accelerate Hadoop’s growing adoption in tne enterprise by adding support for essential capabilities of any enterprise data platform. As a result, its just launched new HDP Governance Ready, HDP Operations Ready and HDP Security Ready certifications.

The governance certification is designed to ensure data is fed into the platform as described by the Apache Falcon data workflow engine, while the operations certificate is focused on integrating its platform with Apache Amari for provisioning and monitoring of Hadoop clusters. As for the security certification, this is designed to work with the Apache Knox gateway and Apache Ranger to provide centralized management and security integration.

John Kreisa, strategic marketing vice president of Hortonworks, told CRN.com the new certifications were added in response to requests from its development partners. “We’re seeing more partners moving into the program because of the certifications they can get and express the level of integration they have,” he said.

The move highlights how Hortonworks’ relationships with its partners and independent software vendors are central to its overall strategy, of which the Hortonworks Certified Technology Program is a key part. Software vendors can integrate the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) with their own applications using the program.

“The certifications are really representative of the larger, continued investment in partners and ISVs,” explained Kreisa. “This is the deepest certification program on the market. No one else offers this functionality to ISVs. It is something we are quite proud of and that we work on to differentiate ourselves in the market.”

Image credit: geralt via Pixabay.com