EMC's Greenplum Offers 'big Data' Tools at No Charge

EMC is now offering a community edition of its Greenplum data warehousing platform, as well as algorithms and data mining tools for working with large data sets, at no charge, the company announced Tuesday.

The software, [available at community.greenplum.com ], will eliminate initial cost barriers for such technologies, as well as enable developers and scientists to contribute to future tools, according to a statement.

Greenplum Community Edition includes the company's MPP (massively parallel processing) database; MADlib, an open-source library of analytic algorithms; and a data-modeling tool called Alpine Miner.

Users who decide to try the Community Edition "gain access to a comprehensive, purpose-built business analytics environment that enables them to view, modify and enhance included demo data files," the company said. They can also participate in a new set of community forums.