Rockset Inc., a San Mateo, California-based data processing startup, today exited stealth mode with what it describes as a serverless analytics and search platform.

The term “serverless” refers to a fast-rising category of cloud services that automate the low-level infrastructure management tasks administrators have historically performed manually. Rockset uses a somewhat broader definition of the term. The startup’s platform, which runs on Amazon Web Services, not only handles hardware provisioning but also takes care of the logistics involved in readying data for analysis.

Rockset claims that starting a project is as easy as connecting to a data source. The startup’s platform can automatically ingest records sitting in traditional databases and other backend systems, as well as real-time data streams generated by connected devices.

Once ingested, the information is prepared for analysis. Rockset has what it calls a “smart schema” that spares analysts the trouble of manually figuring out a way to organize their records. Rockset Chief Executive Officer Venkat Venkataramani, a former engineering director at Facebook Inc., told TechCrunch that the platform also creates multiple indexes of the data to make analytics project run more smoothly.

An index is a file that serves an analogous role to a phone book, organizing information in a certain way to make finding items faster. Venkataramani said that having multiple indexes enables Rockset to speed up a wide range of different queries without requiring any user input. That frees up data scientists to focus on analyzing their records, which they can do using standard SQL syntax. 

Venkataramani founded Rockset in 2016 with fellow Facebook veteran Dhruba Borthakur, a co-creator of the Hadoop File System who serves as the startup’s chief technology officer. The duo raised $21.5 million in funding from Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital prior to today’s launch. Sequoia partner Mike Vernal and Greylock’s Jerry Chen, a repeat guest on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE studio, sit on the board of directors.

Photo: Rockset