Azure HDInsight Update and Roadmap 2018

• HDInsight is an Azure service based on Apache’s Hadoop software framework, a popular solution for managing and analyzing Big Data.
• The service automates the deployment and scaling of Hadoop clusters more quickly and at lower cost than on-premises, and without substantial upfront investment.
• HDInsight continues to receive significant investment, adding new cluster types, support for third-party applications, and advanced security and auditing tools.

HDInsight offers multiple native Apache Hadoop deployment configurations that are optimized for specific workloads, like unstructured data mining, high-speed analytics, and data warehousing. The service will most likely appeal to customers who want to deploy multiple Hadoop configurations or who have other data and applications already hosted in Azure.

This report is designed for IT directors and planners and discusses the breadth of HDInsight’s capabilities, deployment options, development features, pricing structure, and roadmap for new features. A sidebar covers HDInsight compared to other Microsoft-hosted Hadoop services: Azure Data Lake and Azure Databricks. (See the sidebar “Comparing Azure-Hosted Hadoop Services“.) A separate report discusses where HDInsight fits into Microsoft’s database landscape.