MapR Updates Distribution for Apache Hadoop
New release improves Hadoop accessibility.
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MapR Technologies, Inc., a Apache Hadoop distribution provider, has released Version 1.2 of the MapR Distribution that delivers several new features and capabilities and includes significant performance improvements. With the release of Version 1.2, MapR brings robust performance and dependability to a host of new applications by expanding support for C/C++ API access and supporting Windows and Mac clients.
A complete MapR Version 1.2 cluster is also available as a free virtual machine to make it easy for anyone to become familiar with MapReduce and Hadoop almost effortlessly. Version 1.2 also includes the underpinnings to support MapReduce 2.0 that further expands the types of applications that can take advantage of a Hadoop cluster.
Specific advances in Version 1.2 include:
Ability to take advantage of next generation resource management framework. MapR users will be able to take advantage of MapReduce 2.0 once it is ready for production use. Although it is expected to take several months for the community to stabilize Hadoop 0.23, users will be able to take advantage of the combined benefits of MapReduce 2.0, such as backward-compatibility and scalability and MapR’s capabilities, such as HA (no lost tasks or jobs during a JobTracker or ApplicationMaster failure) and the high-performance shuffle.
High-performance native access library. With Version 1.2, MapR provides a libhdfs implementation that bypasses Java altogether and provides high-performance access to the distributed file system from C/C++ applications and other compatible scripting languages. There is no need to recompile applications that use libhdfs because the API (header file) is identical.
Upgrade of various packages including HBase, Hive, and Pig. The HBase package in the MapR Distribution has been upgraded to release 0.90.4 and includes significant performance improvements. In addition, MapR has identified several critical stability and data-corruption issues in 0.90.4 thathave been addressed by backporting 15 fixes from future HBase releases. Versions of Hive and Pig have been upgraded in the MapR distribution, so users can leverage the latest bug fixes and features available from these Apache projects.
Mac and Windows clients. MapR provides easy-to-install packages for Mac and Windows (in addition to Linux), allowing users of all major platforms to run Hadoop applications without having to install third-party libraries such as cygwin.
MapR Virtual Machine (VM) capabilities/ MapR now provides a VMWare virtual machine that allows users to experiment with the MapR Distribution. This version makes it easy to experiment with some of MapR’s unique capabilities, such as NFS and snapshots. The VM is also a great asset to new Hadoop users, making it possible for them to be running on any environment (e.g., a laptop) within minutes.
The latest MapR Distribution is available for download at www.mapr.com/download.