WANdisco joined the Hortonworks Technology Partner Program to help customers achieve maximum uptime in their Hadoop deployment. The Silicon Valley-based developer offers replication software that syncs servers in real time to make sure settings and data are available, even in the case of a failure. The platform works across both local area networks and WANS that span thousands of miles and multiple continents.

“WANdisco is bringing active-active replication technology to enterprises for high-availability global Hadoop deployments,” David Richards, the chief executive officer of WANdisco, wrote in a statement. “Hortonworks Data Platform customers will greatly benefit from WANdisco non-stop Big Data solutions through this partnership.”

WANdisco’s solution can be implemented to eliminate the single point of failure that is inherent to Hadoop, thus making the analytics engine more viable for mission-critical processes that require consistent availability.  The fact that the company decided to sign up with Hortonworks’ partner program is a big win for both firms.

Hortonworks as a standalone company is a relatively new player to the big data scene: its top competitors, namely Cloudera, have had a few extra years to establish their market presence and lay down the groundwork for a rapidly growing customer base. Hortonworks is in a much trickier position because it’s not only young, but its business model is also radically different than that of its peers.  The startup bundles premium services and solutions with its Hadoop distribution, an approach that requires strong channel relations to pull off.

From WANdisco’s point of view, this partnership represents one of the first major developments since the acquisition of AltoStor in November 2012. The $5 million deal was a talent buy meant to bridge the gap between WANdisco’s line-up and the analytics world by tapping into AltoStor’s team of engineers.