The community technology preview (CTP) of Apache Hadoop-based Services for Windows Azure (or Hadoop on Azure) is now available, according to the blog post, “Availability of Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Hadoop based Service on Windows Azure” on the SQL Server Team blog. 

And according to the blog post, “Helping make Hadoop Easier By Going Metro” on the Microsoft SQL Server Development Customer Advisory Team blog, “one of the great things about the new Hadoop on Azure service is that Hadoop is now ‘all Metro’ – that is a Metro UI with a Live Tile implementation.”

“What is even cooler,” the post continues, “is that you can interact with Hadoop, Hive, Pig-Latin, Hadoop Javascript framework, Windows Azure DataMarket, and Excel using the Hadoop on Windows Azure service.”  Check out the Channel 9 video for Hadoop on Windows Azure for more information.

If you want an invite code for the CTP, please check out the fill out the Connect survey.

Click here to read the full blog post about the CTP of Apache Hadoop-based Services for Windows Azure.  Click here to read the full blog post to learn more about Hadoop and Metro.