Microsoft brings Apache Spark, Cassandra, MariaDB to its Azure cloud

Microsoft has brought several third-party popular platforms to its Azure cloud aimed at developers and data analysts.

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The new Azure capabilities include:

• Azure Databricks, a beta Apache Spark cluster computing platform for developers to get insights out of enterprise data. Developers can request to participate in the beta.
• An API for running the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database as a service on Azure. This service leverages Microsoft’s Azure Cosmos DB, a globally distributed database. Developers can use familiar Cassandra tools. Microsoft is offering a signup for the API by logging into an Azure account.
• An upcoming preview of Azure Database for MariaDB, a fork of MySQL. Developers can sign up for the beta.
• Azure Devops Projects, a beta service for configuring a devops pipeline. Azure Devops Projects lets developers set up Git repositories and automate build and release pipelines.