Using Windows Azure HDInsight Emulator

Abstract

Deploying your Hadoop clusters on Azure invariably incurs some cost. The actual cost of deploying a solution depends on the size of your cluster, the data you play with, and certain other aspects, but there are some bare-minimum expenses for even setting up a test deployment for evaluation. For example, you will at least need to pay for your Azure subscription in order to try the HDInsight service on Azure. This is not acceptable for many individuals or institutions who want to evaluate the technology and then decide on an actual implementation. Also, you need to have a test bed to test your solutions before deploying them to an actual production environment. To address these scenarios, Microsoft offers the Windows Azure HDInsight Emulator.