MADlib: Big Data Machine Learning in SQL for Data Scientists

Data scientists and others working with Big Data may be interested in MADlib, an open-source framework for Big Data machine learning in SQL. As of November 25th, the framework is on version 1.4, and includes such features as support for Postgres, Pivotal Greenplum Database, and Pivotal HAWQ, a commercially usable BSD license, and more. According to the MADlib team, the key philosophies in MADlib's development are the following:

• Operate on the data locally—in database. Do not move it between multiple runtime environments unnecessarily.

• Utilize best of breed database engines, but separate the machine learning logic from database specific implementation details.

• Leverage MPP Share nothing technology, such as the Pivotal Greenplum Database, to provide parallelism and scalability.

• Open implementation maintaining active ties into ongoing academic research.