Practical Azure #21 - HDInsight

“Big Data” is undeniably one of the more prevalent buzzwords of the last year or two, and given the scalability inherent to the cloud, it’s a natural fit for Windows Azure. Microsoft's specific foray into this burgeoning technology is the HDInsight service (previously known as Hadoop on Azure).

With HDInsight, Microsoft has become a significant player in the Hadoop ecosystem; moreover, the integration of existing Business Intelligence tools, like Excel’s PowerPivot, makes this technology readily accessible and consumable from the desktop. Join me for this episode for Practical Azure for a tour of the HDInsight offering and a look at the contributions Windows Azure is making back to the open-source community in this area.

Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod, Zune HD) High Quality MP4 (iPad, PC) Mid Quality MP4 (WP7, HTML5) High Quality WMV (PC, Xbox, MCE)

And here are the Handy Links for this episode:

Get your free trial Azure account

Windows Azure Training Kit

HDInsight on windowsazure.com

Channel 9 Getting started with Windows Azure HDInsight service

Cloud Cover: Episode 103

Apache Hadoop site