Revolutions

Accelerating analytics at MSU with Revolution R Enterprise

Erik Sigur, Information Technologist for the Department of Statistics and Probability at Michigan State University, writes at ReadWriteWeb about using Revolution R Enterprise to provide high-performance computation in R to the researchers in his department:

Our search for a more effective version of R ultimately brought us to a product called Revolution R Enterprise by Revolution Analytics, which provides commercial support and software for open source R. It takes advantage of multiple processor cores by using optimized assembly code and efficient multi-threaded algorithms that use all of the processor cores simultaneously.

The department at MSU provides high-performance computing facilities via their Statistical Computing Cluster: a network of high-performance PCs running under the Microsoft HPC Server environment. Revolution R Enterprise 5 provides features to distribute R jobs amongst the nodes of a cluster, and to use the power of distributed computing to reduce the time required to process big-data statistical analyses. Says Erik:

Once the department could schedule R jobs in an HPC environment, the demand began to drastically increase. The HPC cluster is now scheduling more than four times the amount of jobs that were scheduled in previous semesters, from 200 jobs over a year ago to over 800 jobs this past semester. Jobs that were taking over three months to complete on open source R were completed in less than a few days with Revolution R. Computational jobs are now run multiple times with significantly higher levels of accuracy than ever before.

Learn more about Erik's experiences with Revolution R Enterprise at the link below. You can also read the case study on the Revolution Analytics website, or learn more about the HPC features of Revolution R Enterprise in our archived webinar.

ReadWriteEnterprise: [Case Study] Lessons in High Performance Computing with Open Source

Forbes: Top 20 influencers in Big Data

Haydn Shaughnessy at The Forbes blog provides a list of the "Top 20 Influencers in Big Data", and I'm humbled to report that yours truly is listed there at #2. It's an instantaneous ranking based on the social-media tracking tool Traakr, but it's still great to be listed alongside writers for SiliconAngle, GigaOM, and KDNuggets (and even Mashable!). I firmly believe that the R language has a strong future in the world of Big Data, so I'm glad to hear the message is getting through.

Forbes: Who Are The Top 20 Influencers in Big Data? 

Introducing Dave Rich, Revolution Analytics' new CEO

It's with great pleasure that we welcome Dave Rich as Revolution Analytics' new CEO today. Dave comes to us from Accenture Analytics, where he was Global Managing Director. Dave's extensive experience integrating analytics platforms with day-to-day operations at Fortune 500 enterprises will be invaluable as we apply analytics based on Revolution R Enterprise to mission-critical business processes.

Former CEO Norman Nie, who over the past two years has been instrumental in setting the product vision for Revolution's product suite, is now our Senior Advisor for Products and Strategy to the CEO. It's great to have Norman's expertise in statistics and big data analytics to continue to guide our product strategy for bringing R to the enterprise.

Thanks, Norman, for your leadership, and welcome, Dave, to the Revolution team! 

Revolution Analytics News Room: Revolution Analytics names David Rich new CEO

Announcing the winners of the Applications of R in Business contest

It's with great pleasure that the team at Revolution Analytics announces the winners of the inaugural "Applications of R in Business" contest:

Grand Prize ($10,000): Shannon Terry and Ben Ogorek, Nationwide Insurance for 'A Direct Marketing In-flight Forecasting System'

Runner Up Prize ($5,000): Jeffrey Breen, Atmosphere Research Group for 'Mining Twitter for Airline Consumer Sentiment'

Congratulations to both winners, who were selected by a judging panel of industry experts, analysts, and R users. (The competition was also very close: there was only a coupe of points in the judges' aggregate scores separating the top two entries.) 

In addition, the following applications were selected for $1,000 Honorable Mention prizes by Revolution Analytics:

• Hakan Koç and Bengt Maas, Salzgitter Mannesmann Forschung GmbH: Towards an ideal steel plant - Online liquid steel temperature prediction using R
• Imre Kocsis, Kristóf Gáti, András Pataricza, and Gábor Horváth, Budapest University of Technology and Economics: Time Series Analysis and Order Prediction with R
• Stephen D. Simon, P.Mean Consulting / University of Missouri-Kansas City: Predict the duration of your clinical trial
• Shannon Terry and Ben Ogorek, Nationwide Insurance: Quantifying Uncertainty in IT Estimates
• Yihui Xie, PhD Candidate at Department of Statistics, Iowa State University: knitr: Elegant, flexible and fast dynamic report generation with R

You can learn more about all of the winning applications in the slideshow on the Applications of R in Business Contest Winners page, in the press release and in the reports in Read Write Web, Enterprise Apps Today and Information Management.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest. A special mention is due to Shannon Terry and Ben Ogorek, both from Customer Analytics within Nationwide Insurance. They have been gracious enough to donate both their grand prize and honorable mention prizes to charity Mid-Ohio Foodbank, a 501(c)(3) organization based in Columbus, OH and a close community partner with Nationwide Insurance, will receive $11,000 to support their efforts in hunger relief. What a wonderful contribution!

Revolution Analytics: Applications of R in Business Contest: 2012 Winners 

BBBT Podcast with David Smith

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Boulder, CO and present R and Revolution Analytics to about 20 analysts as part of the Boulder BI Brain Trust (BBBT). It was a great pleasure to describe the vision for Revolution R Enterprise and got some great feedback from the particpants.

During the event, I had a great 10-minute conversation with BBBT president and founder Claudia Imhoff about the R project, how Revolution R Enterprise is used, and the future of Revolution Analytics. The podcast is now live on the web, and you can listen to it at the link below.

BBBT Podcasts: Revolution Analytics 

Revolution Newsletter: January 2012

The most recent edition of the Revolution Newsletter is out. The news section is below, and you can read the full January edition (with highlights from this blog and community events) online. You can subscribe to the Revolution Newsletter to get it monthly via email.

Reflections on 2011. Last year was a big one for Revolution Analytics, with new products, new partners and being named as a Gartner Cool Vendor. Join Revolution Analytics CEO Norman Nie as he reflects on the accomplishments of 2011 in this open letter to our customers.

Revolution Analytics Winter Webinar Series. A brand-new series of webinars for 2012 kicks off on February 8 with "A backstage tour of ggplot2" by package developer and data visualization expert Hadley Wickham. Click here for a complete schedule of upcoming webinars on in-database analytics with R and Netezza, analyzing loans and portfolios, actuarial analysis, model implementation and adoption, and much more.

Applications of R in Business Contest. The results are in -- many thanks to the expert judging panel who have selected the winners of the inaugural Applications of R in Business Contest. Stay tuned for our announcement at the end of January when we award $20,000 in cash prizes to the winning contestants.

Wanted: Sales Engineers. Revolution Analytics is looking for people who are passionate about R, have experience with data analysis in an enterprise data environment, and love working with customers. Could this be you? For more information, see our careers page.

Frequently Asked Questions about Revolution R Enterprise. If you're using Revolution R Enterprise (or just getting started), our Support team has provided extensive online FAQs to help you. Check them out for tips on using Revolution R Enterprise on Windows, working with big data with RevoScaleR, and deploying R via Web Services with RevoDeployR.

Revolution Analytics: Startup to Watch. Silicon Angle selected five open-source startups to watch in 2012, and Revolution Analytics is on the list.

New features coming soon: Revolution Analytics has new features in the works and we're looking for beta testers! In an upcoming release, Revolution R Enterprise will support distributed computing for Linux (RHEL) using Platform Computing’s LSF.  We're also rolling out support for “big data” generalized linear models (GLM).  If you're an LSF shop, or if you're interested in estimating GLM models such as Poisson, Gamma, or Tweedie on large data sets -- or even better, if you'd like to estimate them on an LSF cluster—please contact us now! The beta is planned for February. Email beta@revolutionanalytics.com if you'd like to participate. 

Revolution Analytics: Newsletter Archive

 

Revolution Analytics: 2011 in Review, by Norman Nie

In this open letter to our customers, Revolution Analytics CEO Norman Nie reflects on the accomplishments of the past year.

Dear Revolution Analytics Client,

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy 2012 and thank you for your support in 2011. Through the efforts of the R Community, Revolution Analytics and its clients and partners, R became even more pervasive in academia and all kinds of enterprises adopted Revolution Analytics in order to leverage the power of R in their analytics deployments. It’s so gratifying to hear how Revolution R Enterprise has helped expedite the development of ground-breaking pharmaceuticals, fostered closer customer relationships, and helped keep a wide range of critical metrics on track through a variety of predictive analysis applications. It’s because of your success that we were named a Gartner Cool Vendor for Business Intelligence and Analytics and one of 20 Companies to Watch by CIO Magazine. 

Some of the most talked about industry trends put all of us who have dedicated our careers to the innovative use of statistical analysis in the middle of the conversation because when it comes to hot topics such as “Big Data” and “predictive analysis,” we’re leading the way. And in keeping with the spirit of the open source community, we lead by learning, doing and sharing. We promise to continue in 2012 to learn from you, our customers, and deliver what you need to be successful, specifically: 

• Super-fast performance
• Productivity improvements for both data scientists and IT teams
• Scalability to huge data sets
• Innovation in the analytics and the supporting analytics architecture
• Portability of the models no matter the underlying data management platform

Our product development efforts and the partnerships we made in 2011 — such as with IBM Netezza, Cloudera and Microsoft — were all about your success in these areas. We will continue to work with the most important industry leaders to integrate R across a range of technology platforms and with the most knowledgeable integration and training providers to help you get the most from your investment with Revolution Analytics. 

One of the most exciting projects underway is our highly innovative web-based user interface (UI) that will be made available over several releases in 2012. The Web UI constitutes an intuitive, menu-driven environment that provides ease of use for non-statisticians and programmers using Revolution R Enterprise and also delivers an extensible framework so that R package developers can themselves easily build “ease of use” interfaces for their own R packages. I look forward to telling you more about this in the near future. 

Wherever you R, we’re there with you. As always, I welcome your comments and ideas about how we can help you and your team. 

Yours Sincerely
Norman Nie, CEO

Revolution Analytics 2012 R User Group Sponsorship Program

On of Revolution Analytics' main missions is to support and foster the growth of the R community, and in 2011 we sponsored more than 25 local R user groups and meetings with cash donations for for venue hire, meetup.com dues, refreshments, and other group needs. We also sent hundreds of "I love R" T-shirts and stickers to group members to share and spread the word about R.

Now, with over 75 local R user groups active worldwide, the Revolution Analytics User Group Sponsorship Program is open for applications for 2012 funding. For established user groups who already have had meetings, the deadline for applications is March 31. (If you're thinking about starting a new local R user group, seed funding for new groups is available through September 30, 2012.) Sponsored groups will receive a cash donation according to the size of the group, plus a box of R-related T-shirts, stickers, and other goodies to distribute to members from Revolution Analytics.

Group leaders can find more information about the sponsorship program, and the application form, at the link below.

Revolution Analytics: 2012 Local R User Group Sponsorship Program 

 

Good at applying R? Be a Sales Engineer!

Revolution Analytics is hiring! We're looking for a Sales Engineer -- someone who can show Revolution R to potential customers and really show off what R can do in an applied setting. (Fun fact: this was my first job when I left university, and it's a lot of fun.) The job description is below, please pass it along to anyone who may be interested.

PreSales / Technical Sales (Associate/Senior)
Palo Alto, CA

Revolution Analytics is the leading commercial provider of software and support for the open source “R” statistical computing language. Our products, including Revolution R and Revolution R Enterprise, enable statisticians, scientists and others to create superior predictive models and derive meaning from mission-critical data in record time. Revolution Analytics works closely with the R community to incorporate the latest developments in open source R and with our clients to support their efforts to produce ground-breaking innovations in life sciences, financial services, defense technology and other industries where high-level analytics are crucial to success. 

The ideal candidate will be passionate about R, have experience with data analysis in an enterprise data environment, and love working with customers.  In addition, candidates should be solution oriented with an ability to stay cool while managing multiple tasks and changing priorities.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Be the technical expert that supports Sales through product demonstrations, expertise in product capabilities, and proof of concept applications.
• Respond to customer requests for information, and assist in installations and product use prior to sale.  
• Assist Marketing by developing white papers, relevant technical examples, and case studies.
• Work with the Marketing and Product Development teams to maintain currency on the technical capabilities of the product and the product roadmap.  
• Actively communicate customer feedback to Sales and Marketing.
• Support product demonstrations at trade shows, seminars and other events.
• Participate in training courses, support and consulting engagements as needed.
• Ability to travel up to 20%

Required Qualifications:

• Strong verbal and written communication skills and experience in developing and presenting technical subject matter.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Expert in R programming including some experience with database interfaces.
• Minimum 3 years experience in a consulting/client-facing role including some interaction with enterprise IT, system integration, and development in both Windows and Linux environments.
• MS in Statistics, Computer Science, Math, Engineering, or related field.
• Local candidates only (Bay Area).

Additional Qualifications (Nice to have):

• Some experience with other commercial data analysis packages such as SAS, SPSS, JMP, or Matlab.
• Additional experience with one or more of the following: Hadoop, Netezza, Relational database management systems, Talend, Ab Initio, Python, Java, PMML, BI tools, web services, cloud computing.

Experience the energy and excitement of a start-up company with solid financial backing –
join Revolution Analytics. At a time when many companies are cutting back, we’re still offering a competitive compensation package that includes a solid base salary, full health care including dental, long-term disability, and 401(k). Revolution Analytics is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

Please email your resume to careers@revolutionanalytics.com, noting the job title and location.

Revolution Analytics named Startup to Watch in 2012

While we were out over the holiday break, Silicon Angle selected five open-source startups that are commercializing and contributing to open source projects as "Startups to Watch in 2012". Revolution Analytics was #2 on the list:

This was a busy year for Revolution. The company released Revolution R 5.0, which included Hadoop integration, allowing users to create map/reduce jobs using R. Also in 2011, Revolution added the ability to import data files from both SAS and SPSS, announced partnerships with IBM Netezza and Cloudera, and added a new predictive analytics algorithm.

Revolution has already landed a few big name customers, including Bank of America and Pfizer. Also, the open source nature R and Revolution’s liberal licensing enable data-as-a-service applications that the licensing agreements of some of Revolution’s competitors prohibit. This means companies can build new types of services based on their own data sets and Revolution’s algorithms.

You can read the complete profile, along with those of the other four nominees (Puppet Labs, Joyent, Opscode and Talend), at the link below.

Services Angle: 5 Open Source Startups to Watch in 2012 # 2: Revolution Analytics