Microsoft BIG Data: Windows Azure HDInsight general availability

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Windows Azure HDInsight provides 100% Apache Hadoop as a service in the cloud. HDInsight builds on top of the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) to ensure full compatibility with Apache Hadoop.

Hadoop-Azure-Logo-NewHDInsight offers:

    • Insights with familiar tools: Through integration with Microsoft’s business intelligence tools, HDInsight enables customers to easily analyze data in Excel.
    • Deployment Agility: With HDInsight customers can deploy and provision a Hadoop cluster, no matter the size, in minutes instead of hours or days, without losing any data.
    • Enterprise-ready Hadoop: HDInsight offers enterprise-class security and manageability with a secure node in every cluster and extensive support for PowerShell scripting.
    • Rich developer experience: Developers have a choice of languages including .NET, Java and others. .NET developers can exploit the full power of language-integrated query with LINQ to Hive, and database developers can use existing skills to query and transform data through Hive.

We already have customers currently using HDInsight, including:

· The City of Barcelona uses Windows Azure HDInsight to pull in data about traffic patterns, garbage collection, city festivals, social media buzz and more to make critical decisions about public transportation, security and overall spending.

· A team of computer scientists at Virginia Tech developed an on-demand, cloud-computing model using the Windows Azure HDInsight Service, enabling  easier, more cost-effective access to DNA sequencing tools and resources.

· Christian Hansen, a developer of natural ingredients for several industries, collects electronic data from a variety of sources, including automated lab equipment, sensors and databases. With HDInsight in place, they are able to collect and process data from trials 100 time times faster than before.

End-to-end solutions for big data

Hadoop-based solution HDInsight is a building block – one important piece of the end-to-end solutions required to get value from data.

All this comes together in solutions where people can use Excel to pull data directly from a range of sources, including SQL Server (the most widely-deployed database product), HDInsight, external Hadoop clusters and publicly available datasets. They can then use our business intelligence tools in Power BI to refine that data, visualize it and just ask it questions. We believe that by putting widely accessible and easy-to-deploy tools in everyone’s hands, we are helping big data reach a billion people.

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For more information  about this release check out post on the Official Microsoft Blog.