Project Daytona: Iterative MapReduce on Windows Azure

Microsoft has developed an iterative MapReduce runtime for Windows Azure, code-named "Daytona." Project Daytona is designed to support a wide class of data analytics and machine learning algorithms. It can scale out to hundreds of server cores for analysis of distributed data. Project Daytona was developed as part of the eXtreme Computing Group’s Cloud Research Engagement Initiative. 

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VENUS-C Announces 15 New Projects Funded by the External Engagement Project and the European Commission

VENUS-C (Virtual Multidisciplinary EnviroNments USing Cloud Infrastructures) is part the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme. The 15 new pilot projects, which have received seed funding to support the testing and deployment of the VENUS-C Cloud infrastructure on Windows Azure, introduce new applications for use in bioinformatics, civil engineering, earth sciences, healthcare, marine surveillance, mathematics, physics, and social media. These applications join an equally compelling portfolio of partner-user scenarios for bioinformatics, systems biology, drug discovery, civil engineering, civil protection and emergencies, and marine biodiversity data. The pilot project teams met on June 9, 2011, at the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center, Brussels, to start a dialogue with the VENUS-C Consortium and agree to an action agenda for the year ahead.

NSF Awards Nearly $4 Million to Innovative Projects to Participate in NSF / Microsoft Cloud Computing Collaboration
On April 18, 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the awardees who will participate in the collaborative cloud computing agreement between Microsoft Corporation and NSF (announced in February 2010). The agreement will offer the award recipients free access to advanced cloud computing resources, which enable faster, less expensive processing across geographically distributed data centers. By extending the capabilities of powerful, easy-to-use PC applications via Microsoft cloud services, the program will help broaden research capabilities, foster collaborative research communities, and accelerate scientific discovery.

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NCBI BLAST on Windows Azure
We are pleased to announce the public release of NCBI BLAST on Windows Azure under a Microsoft Research License Agreement. Built on Windows Azure, this cloud-based implementation of NCBI’s Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) searches all available sequence databases for similarities between a protein or DNA query and known sequences. BLAST on Windows Azure enables researchers to take advantage of the scalability of the Windows Azure platform to execute BLAST jobs on demand in the cloud. In addition to the release of this software, our team will support its use and provide free access to the NCBI reference databases in Windows Azure.
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Three New Cloud Research Engagement Programs in Europe 

• Microsoft has initiated a large project, called Venus-C, as part of the European Commission FP7 funding program. Venus-C will demonstrate how Windows Azure can interoperate with other cloud platforms and the existing European science grid. In early 2011, the Venus-C project will request up to 20 submissions of cloud platforms to use in this interoperability study. In addition, seven initial cloud platforms are currently being ported to Windows Azure. This work will provide useful data to help facilitate interoperability among cloud platforms.
• The U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is funding “digital hubs” to examine how new technologies can be used to enhance the quality of life for everyone. The emphasis is on developing innovative, inclusive products and services. Microsoft is involved through an agreement with the Horizon project, which is the "digital economy hub" based at the University of Nottingham.
• INRIA is France’s premier information technology research laboratory. The Microsoft Research-INRIA Joint Centre was founded by INRIA, Microsoft Corporation, and the Microsoft Research Laboratory Cambridge to pursue fundamental, long-term research in formal methods, software security, and application of computer science research to the sciences. This agreement creates a new INRIA-Microsoft collaboration area on the topic of cloud computing.  

Venus-C project website | Horizon project website

Windows Azure Best Practices and Benchmarking
We are pleased to announce a benchmark suite to help developers and application architects understand best practices for building world-class Windows Azure applications.
Project website