In the realm of distributions, there is no “winner take all,” according to EMC Corp.’s chief strategist for solutions, Ryan Peterson.

“Application vendors are creating solutions on top of distributions,” Peterson said in an interview with theCUBE during EMC World 2015. “Just as different databases have existed inside the same infrastructure, customers are thinking about how they are going to handle multiple distribution environments.”

Hadoop influences scale-out applications

Peterson discussed Hadoop at length with theCUBE. He considers Hadoop a “major platform” and an influence on scale-out applications.

“Apps are being built that consume common data sets,” he said. “If you look at a Telco or Wi-Fi tower … that data looks the same, so why can’t I build a common application? It sits on top of Hadoop, starts automatically processing that data and gives you a result. That is the next step. We’re seeing app providers build scale-out Hadoop-based apps that are going to automatically consume that content. I expect to see more of that.”

Making sure the customer knows where the data is

Regarding data, Peterson noted that EMC continues to look at its capabilities and make sure it provides “the strongest, most stable, most governed cataloging processes.”

Peterson added, “As a customer brings data into the data lake, we can make sure the customer knows where it is.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more wall-to-wall EMC World coverage from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE.