Microsoft aims at big data with Hadoop for Azure and Windows

Microsoft is to integrate Windows Server and Windows Azure with the Apache Hadoop framework to help address the growing data volume issues affecting many businesses.

The company also confirmed SQL Server 2012, the next release of its database platform, will be available next year.

At Microsoft's PASS summit the company announced it will be collaborating with Apache community developers such as Hortonworks on Hadoop-based distributions of Windows Server and Windows Azure.

Hadoop is a framework for running applications across a distributed network of systems, and is maintained as an open-source project by the Apache Foundation.

Microsoft said the move is part of its roadmap for helping customers manage and analyse any data, of any size, whether on-premise or in the cloud.

"Microsoft makes this possible through SQL Server 2012 and through new investments to help customers manage 'big data'," said Ted Kummert, vice president of Microsoft's business platform division, writing on the Microsoft blog.

This is the first time that Microsoft has officially referred to the next version of its relational database platform as SQL Server 2012. Previously known by the codename Denali, this is now set to ship in the first half of 2012.

A community technology preview (CTP) of the Hadoop-based service for Windows Azure is set to be available by the end of 2011, while the preview for Windows Server is set follow in 2012.

Microsoft has also made available Hadoop Connectors for SQL Server and SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, enabling customers to integrate Hadoop with these platforms.