Making good on an earlier promise, Microsoft has released a new version of its Azure cloud computing platform that includes some Hadoop capabilities. However, for now, it’s just a preview. “To help bolster Big Data capabilities on Windows Azure, we are releasing a preview of the Hadoop-based distribution on Windows Azure,” said Microsoft’s Bob Kelly. “This preview enables you to easily run Hadoop projects on Windows Azure and achieve some unique benefits such as ease of use and advanced data analysis.”
In addition, Microsoft has also added or improved Azure support for a number of other open source tools, including Node.js, Eclipse, Java, Solr, and others.