RapidMiner is a data science platform that analyses the collective impact of an organization's data. It was acquired by Altair Engineering in September 2022.
History
RapidMiner, formerly known as YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment), was developed by Ralf Klinkenberg, Ingo Mierswa, and Simon Fischer in 2001 at the Artificial Intelligence Unit of the Technical University of Dortmund.
[Guido Deutsch, “ RapidMiner from Rapid-I at CeBIT 2010 ,” Data Mining Blog, March 18, 2010.] Starting in 2006, its development was driven by Rapid-I, a company founded by Ingo Mierswa and Ralf Klinkenberg in the same year.
[“ Interview with RapidMiner's Ingo Mierswa, Ralf Klinkenberg”, KDnuggets, February, 2010.] In 2013, the company rebranded from Rapid-I to RapidMiner.
[“ German Predictive Analytics Startup Rapid-I Rebrands As RapidMiner”, TechCrunch, November 4, 2013.]
Description
RapidMiner uses a client/server model with the server offered either
on-premises or in public or private cloud infrastructures.
RapidMiner provides data mining and machine learning procedures including: data loading and transformation (ETL), data preprocessing and visualization, predictive analytics and statistical modeling, evaluation, and deployment. RapidMiner is written in the Java programming language. RapidMiner provides a GUI to design and execute analytical workflows. Those workflows are called “Processes” in RapidMiner and they consist of multiple “Operators”. Each operator performs a single task within the process, and the output of each operator forms the input of the next one. Alternatively, the engine can be called from other programs or used as an API. Individual functions can be called from the command line. RapidMiner provides a variety of learning schemes, models, and algorithms that can be extended using R and Python scripts.[David Norris, “ RapidMiner - a potential game changer,” Bloor Research, November 13, 2013.]
RapidMiner can also use plugins available through the RapidMiner Marketplace. The RapidMiner Marketplace is a platform for developers to create data analysis algorithms and publish them to the community.[Ajay Ohri, “ Interview with Rapid-I Ingo Mierswa and Simon Fischer,” KDnuggets, August 2011.]
The RapidMiner Studio Free Edition, which is limited to one logical processor and 10,000 data rows, is available under the AGPL license.[ RapidMiner Embraces its Community and Open Source Culture Delivering Get-More-Open-Core Predictive Analytics, September 1, 2015.]
Adoption
The report noted that RapidMiner provides deep and broad modeling capabilities for automated end-to-end model development. In the 2018 annual software poll, KD-nuggets readers voted RapidMiner as one of the most popular data analytics software with the poll’s respondents citing the software package as the tool they use.
RapidMiner has received millions of total downloads and has over 400,000 users including
BMW,
Intel,
Cisco Systems,
General Electric, and
Samsung as paying customers. RapidMiner claims to be the market leader in the software for data science platforms against competitors such as
SAS Institute and
IBM.
[Ingrid Lunden, “German Predictive Analytics Startup Rapid-I Rebrands As RapidMiner, Takes $5M From Open Ocean, Earlybird To Tackle The U.S. Market,” TechCrunch, November 4, 2013.]
Development
About 50 developers worldwide participated in the development of the open-source RapidMiner with the majority of the contributors being employees of RapidMiner.
[Evan Quinn, “ Is Rapid-I the Hidden Giant of Analytics?,” QuinnSight Research, June 17, 2013.] The company that develops RapidMiner received a $16 million Series C funding with participation from venture capital firms Nokia Growth Partners, Ascent Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Earlybird Venture Capital and Open-Ocean. Open-Ocean partner
Michael Widenius is one of the founders of
MySQL.
Components
The RapidMiner data science platform consists of the following main components:
RapidMiner Studio, RapidMiner AI Hub and RapidMiner Go which can be deployed as a part of the AI Hub. This video explains the links between the main elements and advises on the suitability of each component for different user groups and use cases.
External links
