Leslie Anjan's blog

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 takes core capabilities from Azure Data Lake Storage Gen1 such as a Hadoop compatible file system, Azure Active Directory and POSIX based ACLs and integrates them into Azure Blob Storage. This combination enables best in class analytics performance along with Blob Storage’s tiering and data lifecycle management capabilities and the fundamental availability, security and durability capabilities of Azure Storage. The simplest way to enable Hadoop applications to work with cloud storage is to build a Hadoop File System driver which runs client-side within the Hadoop applications. This driver emulates a file system, converting Hadoop file system operations into operations on the backend of the respective platforms. This is often inefficient, and correctness is hard to implement/achieve. For instance, when implemented on an object store a request by a Hadoop client to rename a folder (a common operation in Hadoop jobs) can result in many REST requests. This is...

Recent times, things have changed for good. Working from home has become the norm. Microsoft have announced some major new features coming to Microsoft Teams, focused on improving the virtual interactions that continue to be a defining aspect of many of our lives during the ongoing global COVID-19 response. These new features have been directly guided by research that Microsoft has undertaken with experts in virtual reality, AI and productivity, and are intended to provide a more natural and engaging online meeting experience. Here are some of the features identified. Together mode The most significant change comes with the introduction of ‘Together mode’ – an entirely new meeting experience which uses AI to display all meeting participants on a shared virtual background, as though you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else. The ability to see everyone’s faces, read body language and easily see who’s talking in a more realistic setting is set to make all kinds of meetin...