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Cloudera acquires Xplain.io, a startup with software for analyzing database queries

Image Credit: Cloudera Facebook page

Cloudera, one company selling a commercial distribution of the Hadoop open source software for storing and processing lots of different kinds of data, has just picked up some new talent and technology by way of the acquisition of startup Xplain.io.

Cloudera provides software for storing and analyzing data, as well as tools to go along with it, like Cloudera Navigator for data management. So it’s interesting to see Cloudera buy a startup with an existing application, rather than underlying technology. Xplain’s application can show admins which data is accessed most frequently, and it can also enable admins to “iteratively build new data models without hand coding for any data platforms,” according to the Xplain website.

The move to pick up a startup with an application isn’t unprecedented. Last year Cloudera acquired DataPad, a startup that had built an technically impressive business-intelligence application and had Python programming language savvy.

“We are incredibly excited to join forces with the whole Cloudera team to build best-in-class data management tools for enterprise data architects. Stay tuned to see what the future of this collaboration will bring,” Xplain cofounder and chief executive Anupam Singh wrote in a blog post.


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Xplain started in 2013 and was based in San Jose, California. Mayfield Fund had invested in the startup.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. But Cloudera shouldn’t have any problem spending money; last year it took on a big data-worthy $900 million funding round.