Hadoop has made real-time Big Data analytics easier than ever, but what about analytics for historical data that is stored for long periods of time?  That's the challenge RainStor is aiming to address with a new Archive Application for Hadoop 2.0.

The new app comes as part of RainStor 6, the latest version of the company's flagship product for data analytics.  With this enhancement, RainStor can provide a new level of analytics performance for Hadoop-based data, according to the company.

"RainStor has been delivering analytical archive solutions to the world’s largest enterprises for a decade, and with RainStor 6, you can now take advantage of those capabilities running on Hadoop 2.0," said Mark Cusack, chief architect at RainStor, in a statement.  "We believe RainStor goes a step further to securing Hadoop as a 'first-class citizen' in the enterprise."

Beyond making RainStor's platform more user-friendly, the Archive App takes advantage of efficiencies in Hadoop to improve analytics performance. According to the company, "the new archive application features XQuery for hierarchical data and documents, and extends analytics support to SQL 2003. Users benefit from a 10-100X-query boost using native SQL against a mix of structured, semi-structured data and documents in the same cluster."

RainStor is pitching the new software as an ideal solution for enterprises that need to store large amounts of data for extended periods of time to meet compliance mandates or ensure long-term access to business information.  At the same time, the Archive Application provides a rules-based workflow for specifying which data to store, further enhancing organizations' ability to meet data governance guidelines in an automated way, according to the company.