NEW YORK — Oct. 24, 2012 — Today at the O’Reilly Strata Conference + Hadoop World, Microsoft Corp. announced new previews of Windows Azure HDInsight Service and Microsoft HDInsight Server for Windows, the company’s Apache Hadoop-based solutions for Windows Azure and Windows Server. The new previews, available today at http://www.microsoft.com/bigdata, deliver Apache Hadoop compatibility for the enterprise and simplify deployment of Hadoop-based solutions. In addition, delivering these capabilities on the Windows Server and Azure platforms enables customers to use the familiar tools of Excel, PowerPivot for Excel and Power View to easily extract actionable insights from the data.

“Big data should provide answers for business, not complexity for IT,” said David Campbell, technical fellow, Microsoft. “Providing Hadoop compatibility on Windows Server and Azure dramatically lowers the barriers to setup and deployment and enables customers to pull insights from any data, any size, on-premises or in the cloud.”

The company also announced today an expanded partnership with Hortonworks, a commercial vendor of Hadoop, to give customers access to an enterprise-ready distribution of Hadoop with the newly released solutions.

“Hortonworks is the only provider of Apache Hadoop that ensures a 100 percent open source platform,” said Rob Bearden, CEO of Hortonworks. “Our expanded partnership with Microsoft empowers customers to build and deploy on platforms that are fully compatible with Apache Hadoop.”

More information about today’s news and working with big data can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/bigdata.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

The pgmag team is quite happy to announce the release of PostgreSQL Magazine in Chinese, thanks to the tremendous work of the Chinese translators team, namely Wilson Guam and Scott Siu.

As for the English version you can either read it online, download the PDF or buy a print copy. Just click on the links below.

Issue #01 : PostgreSQL 9.1 is out

• Read: http://pgmag.org/01/cn/read
• Download: http://pgmag.org/01/cn/download
• Buy: http://pgmag.org/01/cn/buy

Issue #00 : Performance Tuning

• Read: http://pgmag.org/00/cn/read
• Download: http://pgmag.org/00/cn/download
• Buy: http://pgmag.org/00/cn/buy

Other translated versions may come in the near future, stay tuned !

2ndQuadrant is pleased to announce the release of pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat_plans 1.0 beta, an enhanced SQL monitoring and tuning open source tool.

The tool is a further improvement of the pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat_statements module that is distributed with Postgres 9.2, a release in which the module was heavily improved by 2ndQuadrant to make it usable by applications that do not use prepared statements.

pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat_plans allows you to view the most frequent and expensive SQL statements in your applications, just as many other tools allow. The tool is unique in its ability to offer an SQL query that can be EXPLAINed to view the actual plan, rather than merely a similar plan.

pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat[HTML_REMOVED]plans lists SQL statements by plan, not just by query, which allows it to diagnose even complex cases where a single SQL statement returns multiple plans when different parameters are utilised. pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat[HTML_REMOVED]plans is a variant of the standard Postgres contrib module pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat[HTML_REMOVED]statements.

With this release, the module works only with 9.2. In response to strong demand from 2ndQuadrant customers, an explicit goal of pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat_plans is to support Postgres 9.0 and 9.1.

Please visit the official pg_stat_plans page for more information and to download the beta: http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/en/pg[HTML_REMOVED]stat_plans

Editor's Note, Oct. 22, 2012 - The release was updated after publication to correct the reported number of devices showcased at the event.

SHANGHAI — Oct. 22, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. kicked off global Windows 8 launch celebrations today in China. In the first of a series of celebrations around the world, Microsoft customers and partners joined top company executives at a gathering at Shanghai’s 1933 Grand Theatre to give consumers and commercial customers a sneak peek at new hardware and apps in advance of the Windows 8 worldwide general availability on Oct. 26. Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, and Ralph Haupter, corporate vice president of Microsoft and CEO of Microsoft Greater China Region, attended the celebration.

“Microsoft has a more than 20-year history in the Greater China Region, and we are excited to start our Windows 8 launch series in Shanghai, China, the largest PC market in the world,” Haupter said. He reaffirmed the importance that Microsoft is giving to China and complimented the commitment of our hardware and developers in preparing for Windows 8 over the last couple of months. “Windows 8 ushers in a new era with amazing experiences for Chinese consumers and commercial customers and creates new opportunities for Microsoft partners,” he said.

Windows 8 I s Windows Reimagined

Windows 8 offers a beautiful, new user interface and a wide range of apps with the grand opening of the Windows Store on Oct. 26. Today on display were 52 new devices, designed and optimized for Windows 8 by 15 Microsoft OEM partners. All these devices and more, pre-installed with Windows 8, will be available in China starting Oct. 26.

Microsoft also showed Microsoft Surface with Windows RT, in China, following the announcement of its availability in China on Oct. 16.

Microsoft Surface with Windows RT will be available in China at the Suning stores or http://www.suning.com and the recently launched Microsoft Online Store, www.MicrosoftStore.com.cn.

The new Microsoft Online Store will provide an easy access for a broad range of Microsoft products to Chinese consumers.

Windows 8 also provides opportunities for Chinese developers. They have contributed to the Windows Store with a broad range of apps making China No. 2 market worldwide for all apps available at launch, Haupter pointed out. At today’s event, people are excited to interact with Windows 8 apps and games on Windows 8 devices, including AutoNavi Map, BanBao, China Telecom e Surfacing, Ctrip, PPTV, Renren, QQ, QQ Games, QQ Finance, Sina Weibo, Weather China and Youdao Dictionary. These apps fully displayed the power of the new Windows 8 technology and talent in China.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.