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Microsoft Tries Hadoop on Azure

It gives Azure Big Data capabilities and advanced data analytics and a better shot at competing with rival clouds

By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
December 19, 2011 07:30 AM EST
Reads:
 2,896

Microsoft added a trial version of Apache's open source Hadoop to its Windows Azure PaaS Monday as it said it would in October when it teamed up with Hortonworks, the Yahoo spin-off.

It gives Azure Big Data capabilities and advanced data analytics and a better shot at competing with rival clouds like Amazon's EC2 and Google's App Engine.

Users can build MapReduce jobs. Microsoft said a Hive ODBC Driver and Hive Add-in for Excel would enable data analysis of unstructured data through Excel and PowerPivot.

Would-be users have to submit a form and Microsoft will pick the testers it wants based on use cases. Microsoft gave no indication when the widgetry would be more than a preview.

It's part of an upgrade that includes SQL Azure Database tickles and simplified Azure billing and management.

The size of the database can now top out at 150GB, up from 50GB without costing more and it's supposedly easier to scale-out a "virtually unlimited" elastic database tier.

A downloadable SDK has JavaScript libraries and a run-time engine for the Node.JS framework, with support for hosting, storage and service bus.

It's for creating and scaling web apps that run on the Azure Windows Server.

The added language support means Microsoft wants Azure to appeal to developers beyond the .NET walled garden.

With the SDK Microsoft says Azure can integrate with other open source applications, including the Eclipse IDE (an updated plug-in), MongoDB and Solr/Lucene search engine. Access to Azure libraries for .NET, Java and Node.js is now available under an Apache 2 open-source license and hosted on GitHub.

The update offers a free 90-day trial and spending caps with views of real-time usage and billing details at Azure's new Metro-style Management Portal.

Pricing has been adjusted. The maximum price per SQL Azure DB is $499.95.The price per gigabyte of large SQL Azure databases has been cut 67% and data transfer prices in North America and Europe have been reduced by 25% to 12 cent a GB. Asia-Pacific data transfers that were 20 cents a GB are now 19 cents a GB, 5% cheaper.

Published December 19, 2011 – Reads 2,896
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Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

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