Open Data Center Alliance focuses on big data collaboration

The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) has created a working group to support IT managers building and supporting big data applications.

The Data Services Workgroup aims to help IT departments implement databases for near real time business analysis and decision support. It will also aim to drive interoperability among big data frameworks and traditional business intelligence (BI) providers, the working group stated.

The alliance is led by a 12-member steering committee which includes  BMW, Capgemini, China Life,  Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Disney Technology Solutions and Services and UBS.

As part of its charter, the alliance will collaborate with big data companies including Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR Technologies, and data management providers including Teradata and SAS.

Workgroup members will develop reference architectures and proofs of concept implementations for commercial distribution to test deployments. These will be developed into products and services for the enterprise market. The alliance will also collaborate with the open source community to drive benchmarking suites.

"Through our discussions with customers, we have identified a common need for more industry best practices on when and how to implement new data solutions and what critical skill sets will be needed,” said Marvin Wheeler, chairman of the ODCA. 

“By working with end users directly in the ODCA we can share our experiences and start documenting tools to enable more companies to benefit from business intelligence transformation within their enterprise."

Last year the ODCA launched a competition to encourage best practices in cloud computing.