Databricks Achieves Big Data Competency Status From Amazon Web Services

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 9, 2015) - Databricks, the company founded by the creators of Apache Spark, today announced that it has achieved the AWS Big Data Competency from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Databricks is one of a select number of AWS "Big Data - Advanced Analytics" Partner Solutions to earn this prestigious competency, validating the value of its data platform for its customers. This announcement comes just six months after Databricks announced it was recognized as an Advanced Technology Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN) providing technical, marketing, and go-to-market support for AWS-based businesses.

Databricks offers a cloud-based integrated workspace for big data powered by Apache Spark, the most active open source project in the big data ecosystem. Spark continues to gain industry-wide momentum, with the number of committed contributors surging from 255 in 2014 to more than 750 in 2015. The Databricks platform lets users go from data ingestion, to visual exploration and production jobs without the hassle of managing complex infrastructure, systems and tools, making it easy to turn data into value.

The AWS Competency Program is designed to provide AWS customers with quality APN Partners who have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven success in specialized solution areas. Databricks achieved the AWS Big Data Competency based on the company's overall AWS implementation, customer success, and technical expertise of working with data productively, at any scale.

"It's an honor to be recognized as an Advanced Technology Partner, as well as achieving the AWS Big Data Competency - another significant milestone in our relationship with AWS," said Kavitha Mariappan, vice president of marketing at --Databricks. "While our customers discover new opportunities for capturing value from their big data, this competency validates the Databricks end-to-end platform, by delivering unparalleled flexibility and scalability, at an affordable cost, through the AWS Cloud."

Databricks is also announcing today that LendUp, which builds technology that expands access to credit, uses Databricks to develop innovative machine learning models that touch all aspects of its lending business. Specifically, LendUp uses Databricks to perform feature engineering at scale and quickly iterate through the model building process. Faster iterations lead to more accurate models, the ability to offer credit to more of the tens of millions of Americans who need it and the ability to establish new products more easily.

"Our feature extraction process for machine learning used to take days. With Databricks, we routinely do it in a matter of hours, if that," said Jacob Rosenberg, chief technology officer at LendUp. "The ease of creating Spark clusters, in combination with Databricks notebook interface, is a force multiplier for our data science team. It allows them to be more effective and drive the growth of our business even faster."

About Databricks:
Databricks' vision is to dramatically simplify big data processing. It was founded by the team that created and continues to drive Apache Spark, a powerful open source data processing engine built for sophisticated analytics, ease of use, and speed. Databricks offers a cloud-based integrated workspace for big data that lets users go from data ingest, to visual exploration and production jobs, making it easy to turn data into value, without the hassle of managing complex infrastructure, systems and tools. Databricks is venture-backed by Andreessen Horowitz and NEA. For more information, contact info@databricks.com.