Azure simplifies cloud analytics

Microsoft has also introduced a preview of a cost-effective data lake solution for big data analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2, to deliver the scale, performance, and security needed by your most demanding and sensitive workloads.

Because Azure Data Lake Gen2 is built on the foundations of Azure blob storage, all data — from data that is constantly in use through to data that only needs to be referenced occasionally or stored for regulatory reasons — can coexist in a single store without having to copy data. This means that you will have greater speed to insight over your data along with rich security at a more cost-effective price.

Azure Data Lake Storage also provides a unified data store where unstructured object data and file data can be accessed concurrently via Blob Storage and Hadoop File System protocols.

The software company also announced the general availability of new features in Azure Data Factory to deliver data movement as a service capacities so you can build analytics across hybrid and multicloud environments, and drive raw data into actionable insights.

New Azure regions

Microsoft has expanded its Azure presence in China, one of the most dynamic cloud markets in the world, with two additional regions now generally available. The company continues to see immense opportunity in China for cloud services to fuel innovation and multinational corporations.

Microsoft is also constantly increasing Azure’s resiliency capabilities with the addition of new Azure Availability Zones. Its Availability Zone in the Netherlands is now generally available, adding to the Zones already available in Iowa and Paris.