Big Data for the SQL Eye

SQL Server is a great technology – I’ve been using it since 1993 when the user interface consisted of a query window with the options to save and execute and not much else. With every release there’s something new and exciting and there’s always something to learn about even the most familiar of features. However,Continue reading “Big Data for the SQL Eye”

Azure Maximums and Resource Usage from PowerShell

Technorati Tags: Azure,PowerShell Have you ever struggled to find out how many VM cores, HDInsight cores, storage accounts, or other Azure resources your subscription is set to allow or how many you actually use? Maybe you want to use this information in your automation scripts to avoid trying to create components for which you don’tContinue reading “Azure Maximums and Resource Usage from PowerShell”

Get HDInsight Properties with PowerShell

Small Bites of Big Data from AzureCAT You’ve created your HDInsight Hadoop clusters and now you want to know exactly what you have out there in Azure. Maybe you want to pull the key information into a repository periodically as a reference for future troubleshooting, comparisons, or billing. Maybe you just need to get aContinue reading “Get HDInsight Properties with PowerShell”

Use Additional Storage Accounts with HDInsight Hive

When you create an HDInsight Hadoop cluster you pass in one or more storage accounts and their associated keys. This allows you to access the files on all associated storage accounts from the cluster. If you want to use public storage that isn’t passed in at create time that’s easy – simply supply the storageContinue reading “Use Additional Storage Accounts with HDInsight Hive”

Getting Started with Azure PowerShell Cmdlets–Subscription Management

I’ve started using the Azure PowerShell cmdlets more often to manage virtual machines and HDInsight in Azure. Once you connect to a subscription everything just works. However, the initial steps to get one or more subscriptions configured to be used from your machine or understanding how to change subscription information on your machine can beContinue reading “Getting Started with Azure PowerShell Cmdlets–Subscription Management”

Sample PowerShell Script: HDInsight Custom Create

This is a working script I use to create various HDInsight clusters. For a really reproducible, automated environment you would want to put this into a .ps1 script that accepts parameters (see here for an example). However, you may find the method below good for learning and experimenting. Replace all the “YOURxyz” sections with yourContinue reading “Sample PowerShell Script: HDInsight Custom Create”

PowerShell for Azure cmdlets: Subscription was all Wacky

I was working on some HDInsight scripts in PowerShell and doing lots of experimenting. I’m not sure what exactly I did but all of a sudden everything stopped working. With lots of interruptions from meetings and chats and lunch…. I couldn’t retrace my steps. Everything seemed to fail on the Azure subscription information so IContinue reading “PowerShell for Azure cmdlets: Subscription was all Wacky”

Big Data Twitter Demo

Real-time. Social Sentiment Analysis. Twitter. Cloud. Insights. We have your Big Data buzzwords here! Everyone seems to want to incorporate social sentiment into their business analysis. Well we have the demo for you! Use it for a quick demonstration of what can be done and when the excitement goes through the roof, use it toContinue reading “Big Data Twitter Demo”

Access Azure Blob Stores from HDInsight

Small Bites of Big Data Edit Mar 6, 2014: This is no longer necessary for HDInsight – you specify the storage accounts when you create the cluster and the rest happens auto-magically. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cindygross/archive/2013/11/25/your-first-hdinsight-cluster-step-by-step.aspx or http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cindygross/archive/2013/12/06/sample-powershell-script-hdinsight-custom-create.aspx. One of the great enhancements in Microsoft’s HDInsight distribution of Hadoop is the ability to store and access HadoopContinue reading “Access Azure Blob Stores from HDInsight”

Self-Service BI Works!

When I talk to people about adding self-service BI to their company’s environment I generally get a list of reasons why it won’t work. Some things I commonly hear: I can’t get anyone in IT or on the business side to even try it. The business side doesn’t know how to use the technology. ThisContinue reading “Self-Service BI Works!”

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