MapR Frees Hadoop Education
Hadoop is a big deal in the world of Big Data applications and analysis, but getting qualified staff to actually run Hadoop can be a big challenge. In a bid to help reduce the Big Data skills gap, Hadoop vendor MapR Technologies today announced a series of initiatives that will make up to $50 million worth of training available to users for the low, low price of zero.
“We have a large educational services team that has been working for close to two years on the training curriculum,” Jack Norris, CMO of MapR Technologies, told Enterprise Apps Today.
The initial set of free Hadoop training courses includes: Hadoop Essentials; Hadoop Operations: Cluster Administration; and Developing Hadoop Applications. Later this quarter MapR will add four more free courses: HBase Schema Design and Data Modeling, Developing HBase Applications, Hadoop Data Analysis with Apache Drill and Hadoop Data Analysis with Apache Hive.
How Much Is Hadoop Training Worth?
MapR estimates that its free Hadoop training effort is valued at $50 million. The figure is based on an approximate value of $1,750 per course, with 10,000 individuals taking an average of three courses.
“We think our estimate of 10,000 professionals participating in the on-demand training is conservative and the actual numbers could far exceed this and, with that, a figure north of $50 million representing the corresponding training revenues,” Norris said.
The free training is complemented by a path to Hadoop certification for IT professionals. Norris said that MapR partnered with Innovative Exams, which will administer the testing.
“Developers, data analysts and administrators who complete the appropriate coursework have the option of receiving full certification,” Norris said. “This is about Hadoop education, not about MapR-specific education.”
In addition to the free on-demand training, MapR offers in-person training which will still be available on an as-requested basis. Norris noted that the lack of trained Hadoop professionals is viewed as a major obstacle to continued Hadoop adoption. While the new training effort is aimed at addressing this shortage, there are other challenges as well.
More Hadoop Challenges
“MapR has also made significant investments to address other obstacles to adoption, including ease of integrating Hadoop into existing environments, enterprise grade reliability, data protection and the underlying infrastructure to support real-time operations,” Norris said.
Moving forward for the rest of 2015, MapR plans other investments to further its position in the Big Data landscape.
“In addition to this major services investment, you’ll see upcoming announcements on major MapR technical innovations for Hadoop to support business-as-it-happens to improve revenue, reduce costs and mitigate risk,” Norris said.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Enterprise Apps Today and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
Sean Michael is a writer who focuses on innovation and how science and technology intersect with industry, technology Wordpress, VMware Salesforce, And Application tech. TechCrunch Europas shortlisted her for the best tech journalist award. She enjoys finding stories that open people's eyes. She graduated from the University of California.
