The big data teams on Azure will host a special Ask Me Anything session on /r/Azure, Thursday, November 17, 2016 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm PST.

What's an AMA session?

We'll have folks from the Azure big data engineering teams available to answer any questions you have. You can ask us anything about our products, services or even our teams!

Why are you doing an AMA?

We like reaching out and learning from our customers and the community. We want to know how you use big data in the Azure cloud and how your experience has been on Azure Data Lake, HDInsight, Data Factory and Stream Analytics services. Your questions provide insights into how we can make the service better. If this AMA session turns out to be useful, we may start doing this on a regular schedule.

Who will be there?

You, of course! We'll also have PMs and Developers from the Azure Data Lake, HDInsight, R Server, Data Factory and Stream Analytics teams participating throughout the day.

Have any questions about the following topics? Bring them to the AMA.

• Azure Data Lake Analytics, U-SQL
• Azure Data Lake Store
• Azure HDInsight
• Microsoft R Server on HDInsight or standalone
• Azure Data Factory
• Azure Stream Analytics
• Spark, Hadoop, HBase, Storm, Interactive Hive (LLAP), Jupyter, Zeppelin, Livy on HDInsight

Why should I ask questions here instead of StackOverflow, MSDN or Twitter? Can I really ask anything?

An AMA is a great place to ask us anything. StackOverflow and MSDN have restrictions on which questions can be asked while Twitter only allows 140 characters. With an AMA, you’ll get answers directly from the team and have a conversation with the people who build these products and services.

Here are some question ideas:

• What is HDInsight?
• What is the difference between Data Lake Analytics and Store?
• What is the meaning of U in U-SQL?
• How can I build my R regression model on 2 TB dataset?
• What are the pros/cons of using Spark R vs R Server?
• What is the easiest way to find driver logs of my Spark app?
• What are the “gotchas” of geo-replication in HDInsight HBase?

Go ahead, ask us anything about our public products or the team. Please note, we cannot comment on unreleased features and future plans.

Join us! We're looking forward to having a conversation with you!