Name: Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop
Brand: Cloudera
Rating: 4.0 (51 reviews)

Architect at a marketing services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 12, 2012

Cloudera Manager Hadoop Cluster Installation Evaluation

I decided to give Cloudera's Manager software a try, and was pleasantly surprised at how simple it becomes to deploy a substantial Hadoop cluster.

I began by creating an automated kickstart installer for RHEL 6.2 (booting off a custom isolinux image created for this purpose), with all of the required packages, so that from server power on to creating a 20+ node cluster takes less than 15 minutes. The limitation for the number of concurrent node installs is based on network and disk i/o bottlenecks on the deployment server. If you wanted to PXE boot the cluster in a production environment, you would want a bank of servers behind a load balancer, optimally.

Once the Manager is installed on the master node, you simply log into the administration webpage, and from there, add all of the hosts to deploy the cluster on. One nice discovery was that it takes advantage of regular expressions for host names or IP addresses, so you can literally create a cluster containing hundreds of nodes with a trivial amount of effort.

Once the software is deployed, you can select the roles for each of the servers. It's an incredibly painless deployment. That being said, it is not without its flaws.

One of the primary flaws is that all of the configuration and log files are in non-standard locations, and are split in non-standard ways. It's obvious from the way that the files are arranged that it simplifies programmatic deployment. It also makes it a bit harder for a human who is used to standard Hadoop deployments to figure out where everything is located.

And finally, I discovered a bug with one of the packaged software products, Oozie. One of the resource files, oozie-bundle-0.1.xsd contains an invalid regular expression on line 22. I haven't tracked down the behavior, but for some reason JDK 1.6.30 will parse that invalid regex, but JDK 1.7U2 will exit with errors. Naturally, I was running JDK 1.7U2, so it took me a little extra time to debug the problem.

Overall, I quite liked Cloudera's Manager. It's certainly one of the better cluster deployment products I've seen.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user217290Senior DBA Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

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Apr 1, 2015

Can I have Cloudera's Manager software for free to test and deploy it on a sandBox to work on a POC purposes.

reviewer2139891

Technical Presales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 30, 2023

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Provides extensive data storage capacity and ensures better performance

Pros and Cons

"The solution's most valuable feature is the enterprise data platform."

"They should focus on upgrading their technical capabilities in the market."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to maintain our legacy data warehouse for better performance and more extensive storage.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable feature is the enterprise data platform.

What needs improvement?

They should work on the solution's pricing. Also, finding resources with good experience in the solution is difficult. Thus, they should upgrade their technical capabilities in the market.

They should add features like AutoML and AutoDev for enhanced machine-learning experiences. In addition, they should consider developing an integration capability similar to Informatica for an end-to-end enterprise solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for one year.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's customer support team could be better. We received their assistance only with installation and configuration.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is expensive. The license costs around 10k.

What other advice do I have?

Cloudera is a cost-effective solution if you need more storage space. In this case, I advise you to opt for it. I rate the solution as an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller

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reviewer2392494

Enterprise Data Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 11-50 employees

Jul 5, 2024

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Used for big data analytics, data sharing, and reporting

Pros and Cons

"Cloudera, as a whole, is designed to provide organizations with solutions for big data."

"The performance of some analytics engines provided by Cloudera is not that good."

What is our primary use case?

We mostly use the solution for big data analytics, data sharing, and reporting.

What is most valuable?

Cloudera, as a whole, is designed to provide organizations with solutions for big data. Cloudera is not one single component. It has many components related to storage, analytics, queries, and processing. All of these components work together to support big data implementation and analytics.

What needs improvement?

The performance of some analytics engines provided by Cloudera is not that good. So, we are using other analytics tools besides Cloudera.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for more than four years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use other tools like DataIQ and Apache Kudu.

What other advice do I have?

I'm working with the solution myself. As a company, we are implementing it for other customers. Cloudera itself does not provide analytics. It prepares data for analytics tools that work with Big Data, such as Apache Spark, DataIQ, and Tableau.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.