Tableau Software Acquires HyPer High Performance Database System

Tableau Software has announced it has acquired HyPer, a high performance database system initially developed as a research project at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). As part of the technology acquisition, Tableau will add key technical personnel and plans to establish a research and development center in Munich and expand its research into high performance computing.

 HyPer is a fast main-memory database system designed for simultaneous OLTP and OLAP processing without compromising performance. It also unifies transactions and analysis in a single system, and when coupled with Tableau will help customers take visual analytics closer to the transactional systems that underlie most businesses.

 HyPer grew out of a research project started in 2010 by professors Dr. Thomas Neumann and Dr. Alfons Kemper, chair of TUM’s database group. Four of the project’s Ph.D. students, Tobias Muehlbauer, Wolf Roediger, Viktor Leis and Jan Finis, will join Tableau, focused on integrating HyPer into Tableau products.

 “HyPer was born at TUM, similarly to how Tableau was founded out of Stanford,” said Muehlbauer. “We have similar approaches to innovation and a shared vision to help the world see and understand data. We’re thrilled that Tableau customers will benefit from our research, and we now have the opportunity to make a big impact in the data analytics space.”

 The HyPer team will be based in Munich. Tableau plans to invest additional resources in Munich to leverage the talent from TUM for further innovation that will enhance future Tableau products.

 “This news is in line with Tableau’s vision to help more people to see and understand their data. Speed-to-insight is a key differentiator across all sectors in India and we have already seen how customers like Eveready, Marico and others experience exponential returns with what Tableau offers. We look forward to exciting our customers even more, with faster data analytic capabilities and a host of other enhanced features at the level of their databases. User experience has always been at the forefront of Tableau’s efforts and with HyPer’s technologies we intend to build upon that,” said Deepak Ghodke, Country Manager India, Tableau.

HyPer will be integrated into Tableau’s product lines and bring a host of new capabilities to Tableau customers:

• Faster analysis of data of all sizes
• Enhanced data integration, data transformation and data blending
• Richer analytics, such as k-means clustering and window functions
• Expanded support for Big data efforts with semi-structure and unstructured data
• Unification of analysis and transactional systems