MapR Ponies Up with Free Hadoop Training

Hadoop is hard. There’s just no way around it. Without a set of specific technical skills, the chances of somebody developing or running a Hadoop cluster are not good. A new training program unveiled today by MapR Technologies may help to put a dent in the pent-up demand for Hadoop skills.

MapR Technologies‘ Hadoop On-Demand Training is an online program designed to give developers, analysts, and administrators real-world Apache Hadoop skills. The program, which you can read more about at www.mapr.com/freetraining,  involves a series of interactive video lessons, exercises, labs, and quizzes conducted over the Internet.

The classes are free to anybody who wants to learn Hadoop, and there is no limit to the number of people who can sign up, says MapR’s chief marketing officer Jack Norris. “MapR will make whatever investment is required to provide comprehensive Hadoop training,” Norris says. “Anyone can sign-up and there are no limits to the number of courses they can take.”

Three training courses are currently available, including Hadoop Essentials, Hadoop Operations: Cluster Administration, and Developing Hadoop Applications. Later this quarter, MapR plans to unveil four more, including HBase Schema Design and Data Modeling, Developing HBase Application, Hadoop Data Analysis with Apache Drill, and Hadoop Data Analysis with Apache Hive.

The students will learn on plain vanilla Apache Hadoop, which they can then use with any Hadoop distribution, including MapR’s. “Anyone taking the training will have training on Apache Hadoop and be effective using any distribution,” Norris says.

MapR is also providing Hadoop certification as part of this training program. The exams are proctored by Innovative Exams and includes Hadoop Developer, Hadoop Data Analyst, and Hadoop Administrator. MapR is also providing a separate certification track for HBase Developers.

Many in the industry view 2015 as the year that Hadoop finally goes mainstream, when numerous Hadoop science projects turn into production clusters that organizations rely on. Hadoop’s growth chart is on an upward bend, and is expected to hit $2.7 billion by 2018, according to the analyst group 451 Research.

“There is ongoing momentum propelling Hadoop as deployments continue to expand in scope and size,” Matt Aslett, research director of data platforms and analytics for 451 Research, says in MapR’s press release.

MapR estimates the value of the classes at $50 million, based on 10,000 people taking an average of three courses, each valued at $1,750. The company referred to it as an “in-kind contribution to the broad Hadoop community.”

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