Big day for Big Data... Hadoop coming to Windows Azure, Windows Server and SQL Server

The Official Microsoft Blog – News and Perspectives from Microsoft - Microsoft Expands Data Platform to Help Customers Manage the ‘New Currency of the Cloud’

"This morning, I gave a keynote at the PASS Summit 2011 here in Seattle, a gathering of about 4,000 IT professionals and developers worldwide. I talked about Microsoft’s roadmap for helping customers manage and analyze any data, of any size, anywhere -- on premises, and in the private or public cloud.

Microsoft makes this possible through SQL Server 2012 and through new investments to help customers manage ‘big data’, including an Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server and Windows Azure and a strategic partnership with Hortonworks. Our announcements today highlight how we enable our customers to take advantage of the cloud to better manage the ‘currency’ of their data.

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Microsoft has a rich, decades-long legacy in helping customers get more value from their data. Beginning with OLAP Services in SQL Server 7, and extending to SQL Server 2012 features that span beyond relational data, we have a solid foundation for customers to take advantage of today. The new addition of an Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Azure and Windows Server is the next building block, seamlessly connecting all data sizes and types. ..."

All About Microsoft (Mary Jo Foley) - Microsoft to develop Hadoop distributions for Windows Server and Azure

"Microsoft is stepping up its support for Hadoop with its Windows Server and Windows Azure deliverables and will be offering its contributions back to the Apache Software Foundation and the Hadoop project.

By developing its own implementations of the Hadoop stack, Microsoft is looking to provide customers with another option for big data/unstructured data storage and access, officials said.

Microsoft officials made the announcement at the SQL PASS Summit on October 12. Company execs also confirmed at the event what I’ve been expecting for the past month or so: SQL Server “Denali” will be officially named SQL Server 2012 when it ships in the first part of 2012. (Server and Tools boss Satya Nadella said earlier this year to expect Denali to ship in the “early part” of next year.) Denali is currently at the Community Technology Preview (CTP) 3 stage; next stop is RTM and general availability (no beta is on the roadmap).

Microsoft is going to be working with Hadoop core contributors from Yahoo Hadoop spinoff Hortonworks. Microsoft and Hortonworks are readying a CTP test build of their Hadoop-based service for Windows Azure for delivery before the end of calendar 2011 and a CTP of the Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Server some time in 2012 ...

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PHP Blogs from Port25 - Microsoft, Hadoop and Big Data

In a couple of weeks it will be my one year anniversary here at Microsoft and I couldn’t wish for a better anniversary gift: now that Microsoft has laid out its roadmap for Big Data, I’m really excited about the role that Apache Hadoop plays in this.

In case you missed it, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ted Kummert earlier today announced that we are adopting Hadoop by announcing plans to deliver enterprise class Apache Hadoop based distributions on both Windows Server and Windows Azure.

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Technical Considerations

On the more technical front, we have been working on a simplified download, installation and configuration experience of several Hadoop related technologies, including HDFS, Hive, and Pig, which will help broaden the adoption of Hadoop in the enterprise.

The Hadoop based service for Windows Azure will allow any developer or user to submit and run standard Hadoop jobs directly on the Azure cloud with a simple user experience.

Let me stress this once again: it doesn’t matter what platform you are developing your Hadoop jobs on -you will always be able to take a standard Hadoop job and deploy it on our platform, as we strive towards full interoperability with the official Apache Hadoop distribution.

This is great news as it lowers the barrier for building Hadoop based applications while encouraging rapid prototyping scenarios in the Windows Azure cloud for Big Data.

To facilitate all of this, we have also entered into a strategic partnership with Hortonworks that enables us to gain unique experience and expertise to help accelerate the delivery of Microsoft’s Hadoop based distributions on both Windows Server and Windows Azure.

For developers, we will enable integration with Microsoft developer tools as well as invest in making Javascript a first class language for Big Data. We will do this by making it possible to write high performance Map/Reduce jobs using Javascript. Yes, Javascript Map/Reduce, you read it right.

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Straight Path IT Solutions - Microsoft Loves Your Big Data

"This week at the SQL PASS Summit, Ted Kummert – Corporate Vice President of the Business Platform Division at Microsoft (think SQL Server) made an announcement in Wednesday’s keynote presentation. It is an awesome announcement for companies who have “big data” (think semi structured or even unstructured large data sets. Think data that is perhaps a bit too bulky or requires too much formatting to analyze effectively in what we think of when we think of relational databases… Clicks, Tweets, Texts, credit card transactions, health care data streams, etc.) and want to have newer and better ways to work with it.

The Announcement?

You’ve heard of Hadoop? No? Well Jeremiah Peschka does a great job with a quick explanation in this post.

Well Microsoft wants you to work with data in Hadoop. So they announced that this is a large part of their data strategy and there are two really neat ways they are going to be implementing this:

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Become a Player Themselves –> This one had me scratching my head when I first heard it, “wait, Microsoft wants to deploy hadoop on Windows and Azure?! The facebook’s and .com’s of the world won’t ever buy it, they love the open source community, they hate paying for licensing.” But then it hit me… They are not aiming for the flash and hip web companies who have already embraced hadoop… They are actually offering something in the market that has a really compelling story and call to action. ...

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Why I’m Happy

Some would say that Microsoft sees a positive trend and tries to copy it normally. They try to make it their own and sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t. It is a copy though. They take some good and interesting ideas and “microsoft-ize” them. I’ve been working with (and loving) SQL Server for 12 years, so don’t get me wrong when I say this, but sometimes they miss the mark. With this? They aren’t copying, or borrowing or trying to redo… They are embracing. They are looking at why people use a tool like Hadoop. They are asking good questions about it and saying, let’s embrace the open source community their standards and all their work and let’s make a platform and integration for it. They are saying, “Hadoop – you do what you are great at, don’t go changing, here let’s help reach other customers and we’ll extend this great tool set with what we really know and are good at – enterprise support, manageability, instrumentation, reliability” That is cool. That is big.

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