An Open Microsoft: Azure HDInsight Available for Linux

Microsoft is making some big announcements at Strata + Hadoop World today.

Earlier, I talked about the public availability for Machine Learning. Machine Learning, of course, is Microsoft's Cloud-based service, designed for data scientists. Taking advantage of the Azure architecture, Machine Learning allows companies and developers to manipulate Big Data into manageable chunks of actionable, predictive information.

In addition to the Machine Learning announcement, Microsoft is also taking the wraps off Azure HDInsight for Linux. Prior to today, HDInsight has been a strictly Windows service. HDInsight is already 100% Apache Hadoop-based, so it makes logical sense that it should also be available for those utilizing Linux instead.

Microsoft has been on a tear recently, showing the industry that the company is just fine branching out into a non-Windows world. But, with today's announcement, HDInsight is the first Microsoft managed service that uses Linux, allowing Linux users to leverage existing Linux tools, documentation, and templates within Azure.

More information is available here:  Azure HDInsight