Qlik's Upsolver acquisition ups streaming, Iceberg support
With Iceberg a popular foundation for data lakehouses and streaming data key to AI development, the vendor's latest acquisition aims to address growing AI needs for customers.
Qlik on Tuesday acquired Upsolver, adding new real-time data ingestion capabilities and optimization for the open source table storage format Apache Iceberg that is often used as the foundation for data lakehouses.
Financial terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
Both real-time data and data lakehouses are important components of AI development. However, for models and applications to be as accurate as possible, they require the most current data possible, which makes real-time data critical. In addition, they need high volumes of data -- both structured and unstructured -- and data lakehouses enable users to store and combine all types of data in a single location.
Before its acquisition of Upsolver, Qlik already provided real-time streaming capabilities and support for data lakehouses developed with Apache Iceberg as their foundation. The purchase not only improves them but also provides customers with capabilities that are gaining popularity, according to David Menninger, an analyst at ISG's Ventana Research.
"The momentum behind open table formats and Apache Iceberg, in particular, is significant [because open table formats] allow for interoperability and scalability," he said, noting that Databricks' June 2024 acquisition of Tabular to add support for Iceberg furthered the storage format's popularity.
"Scalability is important with respect to real-time streaming data because typically these streaming data sources result in very large amounts of data," he added.
Based in King of Prussia, Pa., Qlik is a longtime analytics specialist that in recent years has also developed a full-featured data integration platform. In addition, as interest and investment in developing AI applications has surged, Qlik has added capabilities that enable customers to develop AI tools.
Additive capabilities
Generative AI has the potential to be a transformative technology by making workers both smarter as well as more efficient.
Generative AI, however, requires a significant amount of high-quality data to deliver accurate, relevant outputs. Without data that's complete, correct and current, AI applications are prone to hallucinations.
The acquisition of Upsolver positions Qlik as a stronger player in real-time data streaming and open lakehouse architecture space. Qlik is enhancing interoperability capabilities within their platform, making it an increasingly relevant choice for enterprises.
Mike LeoneAnalyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
Qlik's July 2024 launch of Talend Cloud aimed to provide customers a full-featured data integration platform that enables them to develop trusted data foundations for AI and analytics. Now, Qlik's acquisition of Upsolver improves the vendor's existing real-time streaming capabilities and support for data lakehouses built on Apache Iceberg.
"Simply put, the acquisition of Upsolver positions Qlik as a stronger player in real-time data streaming and open lakehouse architecture space," said Mike Leone, an analyst at Informa TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group. "Qlik is enhancing interoperability capabilities within their platform, making it an increasingly relevant choice for enterprises prioritizing openness and flexibility in their data strategies.
And though the acquisition doesn't add new capabilities but instead enhances existing ones, it's still significant, given that it improves what Qlik can offer its users, Leone continued.
"Real-time Apache Iceberg optimizations and streaming integration will, together, enable Qlik to better position itself in the open lakehouse architecture space," he said.
Qlik is not the only analytics vendor that has expanded into data management. Tableau, for example, also provides data integration capabilities.
However, by continuing to add and advance capabilities, such as improving its streaming data and Iceberg support with its acquisition of Upsolver, Qlik stays competitive with peers such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Tableau, according to Menninger.
"It's hard to create differentiation in a market that is so mature," he said. "Qlik's offering is certainly competitive with these others, and its associative indexing -- its original differentiator -- makes it easy for users to perform queries across different types of criteria."
Similarly, Leone said that Qlik's expansion beyond analytics has kept it competitive. The vendor built a full-featured data integration platform over the course of about five years, culminating with its 2023 acquisition of Talend and the subsequent launch of Talend Cloud. Now, it is making AI development a focal point.
"They've done a really good job at evolving and organizing their business in a way that can add value to customers regardless of their data, analytics or AI strategies," Leone said.
Specific technology additions to Qlik from the acquisition of Upsolver include the following:
Continuous data ingestion from streaming sources to fuel analytics and AI workflows.
A unified data platform for managing Iceberg-based lakehouses.
Cost optimization with the addition of Upsolver's Adaptive Iceberg Optimizer, which reduces storage and improves query performance through automation.
Interoperability because Iceberg is conducive with platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake.
While Qlik's acquisition of Upsolver improves its streaming ingestion capabilities and support for Iceberg, the impetus for the purchase came, in part, from customer feedback, according to Drew Clarke, general manager of Qlik's data business unit.
"Customers are increasingly adopting open table formats like Iceberg to reduce vendor lock-in and enhance scalability, and they've asked for solutions that simplify these complex architectures while optimizing cost and performance," he said.
In addition, the vendor's response to industry trends played a role, he continued.
Looking ahead
One of the reasons behind Qlik's acquisition of Upsolver is improving interoperability with Iceberg, according to Clarke. Moving forward, improving Qlik's interoperability with data warehouses and lakehouses is a focal point for the vendor, he said.
In addition, adding more AI capabilities to its platform is part of Qlik's roadmap, Clarke continued.
"We're investing in agentic AI to deliver intelligent automation and simplify workflows, helping businesses achieve better outcomes with less complexity," he said.
Focusing on adding more AI to the vendor's own platform is appropriate, according to Menninger.
The vendor unveiled its first AI assistant in June 2024 in a move aimed at simplifying the use of its platform and enabling users to more easily reach insights and decisions. Finding new ways to simplify analytics with AI will be important.
"As an industry, we are still learning how to leverage AI and generative AI in data and analytics," Menninger said. "It will be interesting to see how Qlik and others use AI to make analytics easier, more insightful and more tightly coupled with acting on the insights identified."
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
