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So Neo4J (I think that has versioning?) with AirFlow? Seriously, I have never quite understood what all these unstructured data companies do. Autonomy had quit

So Neo4J (I think that has versioning?) with AirFlow? Seriously, I have never quite understood what all these unstructured data companies do. Autonomy had quite a big product...which, as far as I can tell, was largely about spending heavily on sales and trying to get companies to pay you for warehousing data (with very little of the AI wizardry they claimed to be selling). I think there a publicly listed company that also does this kind of thing...I don't get it. I understand why you can charge an unsophisticated company to hoover up all their useless data, I am not sure how much actual tech is being deployed here beyond that database. EDIT: I think I am recalling Elastic, which I think has an unstructured data business...maybe that is just my imagination.

taywrobel 6y ago
Not Neo4J, so much as a relational database with user-defined schema. They actually build the relational semantics on top of cassandra so that it scales like a beast. And they open sourced it - https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb Now take that, add a few more database technologies to do remote indexing and on the fly imports on federated databases, and some geospatial hotness, give it a swanky UI (now web based, not java), and that’s pretty much the platform, or at least was as of 2014 when I left. And the thing is, they’re remarkably open about all of that... it’s just that people like the boogeyman narrative more, so all the openness about their tech is completely overshadowed, but there’s a reason it and Pinterest were the two hottest internships for college CS students in 2012/2013.
- hogFeast 6y ago
  Oh god, it looks like the schemas are defined in Java. Cold sweat emerging, ORM flashbacks...no, no, I can't, sources of truth everywhere, they are multiplying. Srs, thank you. I will actually take a good look through that as I find this kind of thing interesting. I think there are a few projects that do the converse too: key value on top of relational. I will be honest, I am not sure that I immediately understand the benefit of relational on top of key value...surely that comprises the benefits of going key value? But I don't know, I guess I will need to read more.
chii 6y ago
These companies have more than just tech - it's a relationships and sales company. They make a product, but that product is heavily customized to a particular client, and each client gets their own customizations. The product isn't mass market enough to be an off the shelf solution. So i would argue that the tech is less important than relationships/connections to build the trust that the product can be delivered as required.

taywrobel 6y ago

Not Neo4J, so much as a relational database with user-defined schema. They actually build the relational semantics on top of cassandra so that it scales like a beast. And they open sourced it - https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb https://github.com/palantir/atlasdb Now take that, add a few more database technologies to do remote indexing and on the fly imports on federated databases, and some geospatial hotness, give it a swanky UI (now web based, not java), and that’s pretty much the platform, or at least was as of 2014 when I left. And the thing is, they’re remarkably open about all of that... it’s just that people like the boogeyman narrative more, so all the openness about their tech is completely overshadowed, but there’s a reason it and Pinterest were the two hottest internships for college CS students in 2012/2013.

hogFeast 6y ago
Oh god, it looks like the schemas are defined in Java. Cold sweat emerging, ORM flashbacks...no, no, I can't, sources of truth everywhere, they are multiplying. Srs, thank you. I will actually take a good look through that as I find this kind of thing interesting. I think there are a few projects that do the converse too: key value on top of relational. I will be honest, I am not sure that I immediately understand the benefit of relational on top of key value...surely that comprises the benefits of going key value? But I don't know, I guess I will need to read more.

chii 6y ago

These companies have more than just tech - it's a relationships and sales company. They make a product, but that product is heavily customized to a particular client, and each client gets their own customizations. The product isn't mass market enough to be an off the shelf solution. So i would argue that the tech is less important than relationships/connections to build the trust that the product can be delivered as required.