Data Science for Researchers using Microsoft Azure

Data science is a huge topic, and requires a wide range of tools and services to cover the different areas that it encompasses. Even answering the question ‘What is a data scientist?’ is not easy. This is a brief list of articles, activities and resources for researchers and students to explore how Microsoft Azure and Cortana Analytics can be effectively used for Data Science:

• Azure Machine Learning is a fully managed cloud service that enables you to easily build, deploy, and share predictive analytics solutions. It is designed for applied machine learning. Use best-in-class algorithms, Python, R, Jupyter notebooks and a simple drag-and-drop interface—and go from idea to deployment in a matter of clicks. See https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/machine-learning/
  • Azure ML Studio - https://studio.azureml.net/
  • Developing a Python app with Azure ML - https://blogs.technet.com/b/machinelearning/archive/2015/08/21/build-and-deploy-a-predictive-web-app-using-python-and-azure-ml.aspx
  • Developing a predictive web app with R Studio and Azure ML - https://blogs.technet.com/b/machinelearning/archive/2015/09/25/build-and-deploy-a-predictive-web-app-using-rstudio-and-azure-ml.aspx
  • Cortana Analytics Gallery - https://gallery.cortanaanalytics.com/
  • Azure Machine Learning text analysis service - https://gallery.cortanaanalytics.com/MachineLearningAPI/Text-Analytics-2

• Easily create Apache Hadoop big data clusters using HDInsight on Azure. Use your favourite tools and platforms, including Map Reduce, Pig, Hive, HBase, Storm and Spark. You can add your own custom scripts too, using R Giraph, and Solr. You can even integrate this into Excel and PowerBI. Of course, you can deploy to Linux, and Windows too.

• Project Oxford, a portfolio of REST APIs and SDKs to enable developers to easily add intelligent services into their solutions. See  https://www.projectoxford.ai/

• How-Old robot - https://how-old.net/
• Moustache robot - https://www.mymoustache.net/#
• Emotion API - https://www.projectoxford.ai/emotion
• Vision API - https://www.projectoxford.ai/vision

• The Microsoft Data Science Virtual Machine is an Azure virtual machine (VM) image pre-installed and configured with several popular tools that are commonly used for data analytics and machine learning. The tools included are: Revolution R Open; Anaconda Python distribution; Visual Studio Community Edition; Power BI desktop; SQL Server Express edition, and Azure SDK. See https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/machine-learning-data-science-provision-vm/

Microsoft Research Data Science Initiative

Microsoft Research is enabling data science at universities across the world, helping with curriculum, and providing access to Microsoft tools and technologies. Explore and use more than 60 Microsoft Research datasets across many domains, including natural language processing, computer vision, geospatial/location, HCI and the Microsoft Academic Graph. Find out more at https://aka.ms/datascience 

Microsoft Azure for Research Awards

Submit a proposal for cloud computing resources through the Azure for Research Award program. You can also apply for support for reproducible research through Azure Machine Learning grants.