Cloudera has been offering training programs for Apache Hadoop, the data analytics engine the company and a number of other competitors based their products on, for quite some time now. It has apparently seen a growth in  demand, which is why the company announced today it will be offering its courses via the new Cloudera University.

Cloudera says it certified over 7,000 Hadoop developers and administrators so far. Cloudera expects it will train over 4,000 students by the end of this year and about twice as much in 2012, so it launched the University to be able to cope with the demand.

“Cloudera University’s global training schedule in 2011 includes more than 250 courses in 10 countries. Cloudera is planning to deliver training next year in over 25 countries and expand its certification program to provide credentials across the entire spectrum of Hadoop-related technologies.”

The university offers two certifications, the Cloudera Certified Developer for Apache Hadoop (CCDH) program and the Cloudera Certified Administrator for Apache Hadoop (CCAH) one. This has already proven to be a very valuable resource for Cloudera’s ecosystem, and comes only a few months after the company launched a free knowledgebase.

The Cloudera Connect Partner Program, as it’s called, is an all-inclusive suite that includes the industry’s first Hadoop certification program for third party hardware and software, in addition to sales material, case studies and training among other things. Cloudera doesn’t plan on banking on the relatively new program directly, but is rather considering it as an investment to expand its partner and client base.

Several other companies have made major investments in their ecosystems recently. Among them is AppSense, a VDI firm that introduced the AppSense Certified Service Provider in September. Participating as-a-service vendors can use the company’s offerings to power their own.