Microsoft is focusing primarily on the newly launched Windows 8 operating system, which according to experts is crucial for its further development. In the meantime, however, Microsoft also prefers to look after the growing market for big data.
Microsoft wants to provide an opportunity for companies to deploy and manage one of the most widespread Hadoop platforms in a familiar Windows environment. The company has announced an extended collaboration with Hortonworks, which provides distribution of Hadoop, at the recently concluded O’Reilly Strata Conference + Hadoop World in New York (CloudTimes was a Media Sponsor of the event).
Microsoft revealed two solutions for Hadoop deployment platforms, one based on the cloud and the other for installation at the customer. The company also announced the third release from its prior Azure cloud-based Hadoop service, now known as Windows Azure HDInsight Service. Both were developed in partnership with the developer and distributor of Hadoop, Hortonworks.
The HDInsight Server for Windows includes core Hadoop (which means the Hadoop Distributed File System and MapReduce), and scheduling for MapReduce Pig, infrastructure Hive questionnaire data, service management table recently presented by HortonWorks, HCatalog to access Hadoop data, Scoop for data movement and monitoring console and Ambari management service.
The feature is designed to work with (but not including) Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server. For Windows, the HDInsight is integrated with Microsoft System Center for management control and with Active Directory for access control and security. Providing Hadoop compatibility on Windows Server and Azure dramatically lowers the barriers to setup and deployment and enables customers to pull insights from any data, any size, and on-premises or in the cloud.
For the first time, users will have the enterprise characteristics of a Windows offering-the simplicity and manageability of Hadoop on Windows-wrapped up with the security of the Windows infrastructure in an offering that is available both on-premise and in the cloud. This will ultimately take out some of the complexity that big data users have experienced with some of their earlier investigations of big data technologies, says Microsoft.
The HD Insight Server for Windows also works with the company’s virtualization platform, including Hyper-V and System Center.
Microsoft’s move to support a Hadoop distribution, instead of bringing own product on the market, ensures the survival of the open-source project. Oracle also had made collaboration with Cloudera, another distributor, already behind as Hadoop Big Data Framework.
