This article serves as a single point repository for all content, resources, links, information and latest updates about Big Data, and Microsoft's activities around it.

Contributions from everyone are most welcome.
 

---

Note1: Please see, all the articles are listed in proper order. Articles without any dates are published in alphabatically order. Articles having date are ordered on basis of dates (latest on top). Also, all videos have duration mentioned against them.

---

Note2: Please feel free to edit this document (using the guidelines mentioned in Note 1) to improve the quality of this document. If you would like to be recognized for your work on improving this document, please include your name and any contact information you wish to share at the bottom of this page.

---

 

Big Data

Useful Blogs, Articles and Announcements from Microsoft Sites:

• Getting Started With Microsoft HDInsight: Home Page for Microsoft HDInsight
• HDInsight Services Page for Windows: Brief overview of Apache Hadoop, as well as information for the HDInsight Services provided by Microsoft for deployment on both Windows and Windows Azure.
• A Lap Around HDInsight: Some basic steps to help you get started with HDInsight.
• Getting Started with Windows Azure HDInsight Service: Getting Started with Windows Azure HDInsight Service
• Big Data analytics: Microsoft Big Data Analytics home page, and general benefits
• Microsoft Enterprise Big Data: Microsoft Big Data solution for Enterprises
• Microsoft Research Big Data: List of Research Publications and Technical Reports on Big Data from Microsoft Research.
• Explore what you can build with Windows Azure - Big Data: Microsoft Big Data solution on Windows Azure.
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shishirs/archive/2013/01/12/microsoft-amp-big-data-nrf13.aspxShowcase on Big Data capabilities of Microsoft, featuring HDInsight, Retail Insight, Digital Folio’s Retail IntelligenceTM network and Esri’s Geospatial Analytics Solution. (13 Jan 2013)
• Using Hadooop (HDInsight) with Microsoft - Two (OK, Three) Options: BuckWoody explains different ways of using HDInsight. (4 Dec 2012)
• Choose the Right Strategy to Reap Big Value From Big Data: From devices to storage to analytics, technologies that work together will be key for business’ next information age (13 Nov 2012)
• Microsoft Simplifies Big Data for the Enterprise: New Apache Hadoop-compatible solutions for Windows Azure and Windows Server enable customers to easily extract insights from big data (24 Oct 2012)
• Big Data, Big Health and Big Education: Three Reasons to Celebrate in Canada this July: Importance of Big Data for Health Care Industry (13 June 2012)
• Microsoft Big Data at Hadoop Summit: Hadoop Summit coverage, showcasing the progress that Microsoft is making on Big Data with Hortonworks. (12 June 2012)
• Spotlight on Microsoft Research: Big Data and Open Science: ChronoZoom, an open source community research project (4 June 2012) 
• Hadoop Summit Is Coming Up: Announcement about the 5th Annual Hadoop Summit on June 13 – 14 at the San Jose Convention Center (30 May 2012)
• Big Data, Predictive Analytics, and Self-Service BI Customer Stories: Customer Evidences for Big Data, Predictive Analysis and Self-Service BI (25 May 2012)
• Moving to Big Data within Microsoft IT : Implementation of Big Data within Microsoft (12 Apr 2012)
• Big Data and the Analytical Enterprise: Big Data, and its relevance to Analytical Enterprise (11 Apr 2012)
• How does Hadoop fit into the Analytical Enterprise?: Big Data, and its relevance to Analytical Enterprise (11 Apr 2012)
• SQL Server 2012 is generally available: Second preview of Hadoop based service for Windows Azure (2 April 2012)
• 24HOP - Fitting Microsoft Hadoop Into Your Enterprise BI Strategy: Glimpse of presentation on how a SQL Server professional fits into this big data world. (21 Mar 2012)
• Microsoft is BIG in Big Data: General information on Big Data, Problems faced by customers, and Microsoft's approach and solution for Big Data. (10 Mar 2012)
• Microsoft Releases SQL Server 2012, Drives Advancements in Big Data: Microsoft plans to release a new, limited preview of the Apache Hadoop-based service for Windows Azure in H1 2012 (6 Mar 2012)
• Big Data for Everyone: Using Microsoft’s Familiar BI Tools with Hadoop: How organizations can provide insights for everyone by using Microsoft’s familiar BI stack with Hadoop (24 Feb 2012)
• Big Data, Hadoop and StreamInsight: Insights into MapReduce and Event Processing technologies (22 Feb 2012)
• Big Data - A Microsoft Tools Approach: A list of all tools and technologies related to Big Data (20 Feb 2012)
• Big Data Comes of Age: Microsoft Financial Service Business Talk about Big Data (13 Feb 2012)
• Microsoft Big Data Solution SQL Server, Apache Hadoop and Windows Azure: Big Data Solutions, Key Benefits, and Technical Considerations (20 Nov 2011)
• What’s so BIG about “Big Data”?: Importance of Big Data and Hadoop (14 Nov 2011)
• Big Data and the Cloud - More Hype or a Real Workload?: Myths and facts about Big Data (18 Oct 2011)
• ‘Big Data’ Hadoop Coming to BI on SQL Server, Windows Server, Windows Azure: ISV Developer community talks about Big Data (15 Oct 2011)
• Microsoft’s Big Data Roadmap & Approach: Announcement details for Microsoft discloses an end to end roadmap for Big Data that embraces Apache Hadoop ( 13 Oct 2011)
• PASS Summit 2011: Investments in SQL Server 2012, Big Data, Public and Private Cloud: Announcements made in PASS summit 2011 about Big Data (12 Oct 2011)
• Microsoft, Hadoop and Big Data: Some technical consideration on Port 25 (Name of Open Source Community) about Hadoop and Big Data (12 Oct 2011)
• Talking Intelligent Systems, Big Data and big ideas: The Internet of things and Big Data (5 Oct 2011)
• The Long Tail of Big Data: Project Barcelona team blog on Big Data (7 Jun 2011)
• Big Data I: 16 Papers and original articles: Repository of links to 16 good papers and original articles on Big Data (30 May 2011)
• Big Data – Beginning of New Era of Analytics in 2013: A blog on Big Data 

Upcoming Events

• Big Data Innovation: A huge event on Big Data in April, 2013 @ San Francisco.

Articles from External Agencies

• Microsoft brings fight to AWS with first full IaaS offering: Microsoft today announced the general availability of its IaaS offering and offered to price match AWS for storage, compute and network bandwidth in the cloud. (16 Apr 2013)
• Microsoft Goes After 3 Big Data Myths: Microsoft pushes its big data tools by targeting a trio of common big data misconceptions and talent worries. (11 Mar 2013)
• Microsoft Completes Journey To Big Data Through Hadoop: Readwrite.com's analysis about using windows platform for Big Data. (25 Feb 2013)
• Microsoft Partners Shifting to Big Data:An analysis about Microsoft Partner activities around Big Data (11 Dec 2012)
• Big Data Investments Set to Grow in 2013: Report:IDC predicts Investments in Big Data tools and software to hit nearly $10 billion in 2013 (3 Dec 2012)
• Microsoft’s Big Data Plans: Hadoop Links via SQL Server to SharePoint, Excel and Other Applications : Self-explanatory (29 Nov 2012)
• Big Data Partnership Announces Support for Microsoft’s HDInsight: Big Data Partnership joins Microsoft Big Data Partner Incubation Program (27 Nov 2012)
• Microsoft boasts of Big Data chops for in-memory SQL: 'The Register' talks about Microsoft's Big Data plans (7 Nov 2012)
• Microsoft Seeks an Edge in Analyzing Big Data: NYT explores the capabilities of Microsoft Big Data (29 Oct 2012)
• Microsoft Brings Big Data to Windows: CIO.com suggests that Microsoft and its partners brings Hadoop to Windows and stakes its claim as a vendor of big data technologies with new cloud-based and on-premises offerings (24 Oct 2012)
• Why Simplifying Big Data Means Big Business: VarGuy elaborates the opportunities with Hadoop and Microsoft. (17 Oct 2012)
• Microsoft applies big data toward cataloging endangered species:ZDNet shows how Microsoft is using Big Data for understanding nature. (4 Oct 2012)
• How Microsoft's Big Data Policy Change Could Affect You: Microsoft enables sharing of content between its services. (5 Sept 2012)
• Microsoft’s Big Data Plans: Acknowledge, Embrace, Integrate: Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, covering Big Data.  (13 July 2012)
• Microsoft Does Big Data - Hadoop on Windows: Expert views from Forbes on Microsoft's moves towards Big Data. (6 June 2012)
• Microsoft Moves to Level the Cloud Platform Playing Field: Forrester's take on Microsoft's moves towards Big Data. (6 June 2012)
• Why Klout is making its bed with Hadoop and … Microsoft: Why world is looking at Microsoft for Big Data Solutions. (6 Mar 2012)
• Microsoft's Hadoop roadmap reveals new big data deliverables: More details on integration of Hadoop with Windows Azure and Windows Server. (27 Feb 2012) 
• Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity: McKinsey's take on Big Data (May 2011)
• The Big Deal About Big Data: IDC's take on Big Data (Paid version). (Feb 2011)
• Hadoop and MapReduce: Big Data Analytics: Gartner's take on Big Data, and recent trends around it. (14 Jan 2011)

Downloads

• Microsoft HDInsight Previews: Public previews for Microsoft HDInsight Server and Windows Azure HDInsight Service.
• Strata + Hadoop World: Join the Data Revolution: PDF of the presentations made in O’Reilly Strata Online Conference (3 Oct 2012)
• Microsoft Big Data - Solution Brief: Solution Brief PDF Document.
• Microsoft Big Data Datasheet: Datasheet PDF Document.
• Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop: Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop, along with user guide and license terms

Videos/How to

• Embrace “Big Data” Opportunities: Interview of Bruno Aziza, Directory of BI, Microsoft, on Big Data for BizIntelligence.TV (Duration 00:07:27)
• Using Big Data To Save Consumers Money: Bruno Aziza, Directory of BI, Microsoft (Duration 00:10:16)
• Introduction to the Hadoop on Azure Interactive JavaScript Console: The Microsoft Azure deployment of Apache Hadoop for Windows (00:08:39)
• Use Excel Hive Add-in to Access Hive on Windows Azure: How to use Excel Hive Add-in to import data from Hive on Windows Azure (00:04:49)
• Use PowerPivot to Access Hive on Windows Azure: How to use Excel PowerPivot to access data from Hive on Windows Azure (00:04:55)
• Upload data to Hadoop on Windows Azure and run the WordCount Sample: Two different ways to upload data to Hadoop-Based Services for Windows Azure. (00:04:49)

Pillars of Microsoft Big Data

• Any Data, Any Size, Anywhere - Microsoft Big Data offers an integrated platform for managing data of any shape or any size, whether it’s structured data in relational databases, unstructured data with Hadoop, or streaming data with StreamInsight.
• Immersive Insights, Wherever You Are - Microsoft Big Data empowers end users to gain insights from any data, whether structured or unstructured, with the familiar tools they use every day. Developers can build Big Data applications with tools for simplified Hadoop programming.
• Connecting with the World’s Data - Microsoft offers unparalleled opportunities for discovery and enrichment by enabling end users to connect to the world’s data and services.

Big Data in various Sectors

• Big Data in Education (Part 1 of 2)
• Big Data in Education (Part 2 of 2)
• Big Data And Health Care Get Engaged

Case Studies

• 343 Industries: Halo 4 Team Uses Agile, Cloud-Based Big Data Solution to Quickly Deliver BI Insight (28 Feb 2013) 
• Ferranti Computer Systems Dives into Big Data (13 Apr 2012)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Big Data Drives Gaming Industry CRM (Case study on Harrah’s casino in Las Vegas ) (Apr 2012)
• Klout: Data Services Firm Uses Microsoft BI and Hadoop to Boost Insight into Big Data (6 Mar 2012)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST:
If you edit this page and would like acknowledgement of your contribution in this repository, please include your name below:
[Enter your name here and include any contact information you would like to share]