The 2013 Big Data 100

Businesses are struggling with the rapidly increasing volume, speed and variety of information being generated today – what's come to be known as "big data." Companies are seeking technologies that not only help them process and manage all that data, but tap into it to develop insights about the markets they compete in as well as their own performance within those markets.

To meet that need, hungry startups and established IT vendors have unleashed a flood of innovative technologies to help businesses collect, manage and analyze big data. Market researcher Gartner recently issued a report declaring 2013 to be the year of large-scale adoption of big data technologies: A survey of IT executives found that 42 percent had already invested in big data technology or planned to do so within a year.

Recognizing that need, we present the inaugural Big Data 100 list, developed by the CRN editorial team, identifying vendors that have demonstrated an ability to innovate in bringing to market products and technologies that help businesses manage big data.

[Related: Are You Up To The Challenge? Seizing Big Opportunities In Big Data ]

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We present the Big Data 100 broken into three categories – business analytics, data management, and infrastructure and services. The list includes industry stalwarts that are leveraging their products and services to meet the big data challenge, as well as the wave of startups developing a new generation of products to help businesses address their big data needs.

Big Data Business Analytics

Big data may be all the hype these days -- but it wouldn't mean much without the right tools in place to analyze it.

That's why BI vendors young and old are vying for a slice of the big data market, launching new analytics tools that are tailor-built for massive amounts of unstructured data. Some of these tools are aimed at specific verticals, some are aimed at Apache Hadoop, and some are aimed at social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But all are aimed at helping organizations draw real-time and valuable insights from the growing mounds of data at their fingertips.

Big Data Management

The amount of digital information being produced worldwide is doubling every two years, growing from about 3.6 zettabytes this year to 57.6 zettabytes by 2021, according to IDC. So the question is, where are you going to put it all?

IT executives are struggling to find ways to store and manage all that data, wrestling with not just volumes of data, but different kinds of information, from structured data generated by production IT systems to unstructured data such as documents, Twitter tweets and video.

Big Data Infrastructure and Services

As they wrestle with big data, businesses are turning to IT vendors who can do it all, from data storage hardware and software, to management tools, to business analytics. In many cases it's the established IT vendors who have become one-stop shops for big data needs.

But there's also a growing number of vendor offering a broad range of big data products and services, from cloud storage and business analytics to tools for managing and securing big data systems. Here's who we think are tops on the list for infrastructure and services.

PUBLISHED APRIL 15, 2013