Using a variety of data sources has been a daunting task for mere mortals.  Now, with the Data Explorer add-in for Excel, you don’t need to be a super hero to unlock data gems.  The Microsoft Data Explorer Preview for Excel is now available...

Today Hortonworks announced the general availability of Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows, the industry’s first 100 percent Open Source Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows. The beta version of HDP for Windows was released two months...

The 3 rd Annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey has just been launched by North Bridge and GigaOM Research . We are participating in this survey because your feedback on cloud computing is important to us and the industry.  We want to hear about...

Here on the SQL Server Blog, we spend a lot of time talking about the features and technical “how to” behind our products. The only thing we love more than getting into the details of our products is sharing real-world examples of how they help our customers...

Guest blog post by @SamMarraccini of EMC Corporation.  To read more from Sam, please visit Sam’s blog at www.insideflash.com . Flash technology is changing everything, nothing new there. Chances are the device you are reading this BLOG on contains...

This video demonstrates how to view a Reporting Services report on an Apple iPad that has Apple iOS 6 and Apple Safari. You'll learn how to access reports from the report server and from email, use touch to collapse and expand row groups, sort columns...

SQL Server 2012 PDW has a feature called PolyBase, that enables you to integrate Hadoop data with PDW data. By using PDW with PolyBase capabilities, a user can: Use an external table to define a table structure for Hadoop data. Query Hadoop data by running...

Looking back at this month’s inaugural PASS Business Analytics Conference in Chicago, we can’t believe what an amazing experience it has been! This event included 70+ sessions over the course of two and a half days and was attended by more than 1,100...

Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, which includes Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks to keep your Windows Azure connected to your on-premises infrastructure and applications. Windows Azure Infrastructure...

It’s the final day of the PASS Business Analytics Conference . It’s been a valuable opportunity to learn from other industry leaders, partners and customers, all of whom have great ideas and insight on what the future of analytics looks like. As far as...

Today at the PASS Business Analytics Conference , Microsoft technical fellow Amir Netz and partner manager Kamal Hathi took to the stage to demonstrate how people experience insights. As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post , understanding how people experience...

For the latest and greatest on business intelligence and business analytics, look no further than the PASS Business Analytics Conference , which kicks off today in Chicago. At a time when data is increasingly at the forefront of the industry conversation...

In February 2013 Microsoft received the Common Criteria (CC) certificate for SQL Server 2012 SP1 Enterprise Edition (English) x64 (Version 11.0.3000.0) at EAL4+ and compliant with U.S. Government Protection Profile for Database Management Systems, Version...

This month, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of SQL Server 2012, and we’d like to give a little shout out to our community to say, “Happy anniversary!” We can hardly believe that it was just one year ago that SQL Server 2012 was released to...

Gartner’s annual Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit kicked off earlier today where we are focused on sharing our perspective and solutions with customers, partners and industry leaders interested in big data and business intelligence . Later...

The challenge of running a business is becoming more complex each day. Though data is more plentiful and accessible in current times, how to analyze that data and create actionable insights remains a challenge.  Navistar, one of the world’s largest...

In this guest post from Hyoun Park, PASS Business Analytics Conference (PASS BAC) speaker, we get an interesting twist on the challenge of Big Data and how to stop looking for solutions in all the wrong ways and all the wrong places.   You can learn...

The PASS Business Analytics Conference (PASSBAC) Preview Series continues with more great insights from PASS Board Member, Douglas McDowell, who gives unique perspective on what PASSBAC is and how this conference was developed to address the expanding...

The SQL Server community continues to wow us with your ways! Last week during the “ Spend Spring Break at the PASS Business Analytics Conference ” Challenge, we received an enormous number of great responses to our challenge question, “Tell us how a trip...

Big data brings big challenges, but also opportunities--for people and companies to gain insight, spot trends and make decisions in ways never before thought possible.  In the battle of the buzzwords, "big data" is poised to render "guestimation"...

Did you know that 40% of workers believe that certification helped them find a job or led to a promotion? Certification has never been more critical for staying on top of future trends, including big data, in-memory technologies and cloud based &...

We’re wrapping up last week’s Strata Santa Clara 2013 Conference after a flurry of activity! The week started off with Hortonworks announcing the release of the beta of the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) for Windows, the industry’s first 100% Open Source...

Complementing Microsoft’s overall Big Data strategy , PolyBase is a breakthrough new technology on the data processing engine in SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse Appliance designed as the simplest way to combine non-relational data and traditional...

The world of data is changing at a rapid pace, and you can prepare yourself to tackle the challenges by attending the first annual PASS Business Analytics Conference (PASS BAC) , to be held April 10-12, 2013 in Chicago, IL. At PASS BAC, you will immerse...

Structured or unstructured – what to store? How about all of it? I spoke at the O’Reilly Strata Conference last year and am back again this year to share thoughts about big data. It’s been a remarkable year for Microsoft’s data platform team. While we...