Microsoft has announced a new platform, dubbed ‘Daytona’, which is designed to run analytics and machine-learning algorithms on Windows Azure to allow scientists to analyse large data collections.
At the 12th annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, the company said that the new tool will expand the tool set for scientists in need of large-scale data computation capabilities.
The Microsoft Research Faculty Summit 2011 is a three-day event where leading computer scientists, academics, educators and government officials gather with Microsoft researchers to discuss computing challenges and trends.
This year’s event is themed Future World.
Microsoft Technology Policy Group corporate vice-president Dan Reed said ‘Daytona’ gives scientists more ways to use the cloud without being tied to one computer or needing detailed knowledge of cloud programming — ultimately letting scientists be scientists.
"We’re very excited to empower the research community with this enhanced tool kit that will hopefully lead to greater scientific insights as a result of large-scale data analytics capabilities," Reed added.
During the Faculty Summit, officials are also announcing the recipients of the 2011 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship grants, which are awarded to eight promising young researchers around the world for a total grant distribution of $1.4m.
The Faculty Summit will also serve as a venue to showcase student work from an ongoing Microsoft initiative called Project Hawaii, an experimental program that provides students with tools, services and equipment to create their own, cloud-enabled mobile applications using Windows Azure and Windows Phone 7.
