A special version of HPC Linux is now available as a Windows Azure virtual machine image. Based on OpenSUSE 12.3, this image includes all the packages you need for big data and data science computations including:

• iPython

• NumPy

• SciPy

• pandas

• SymPy

• scikit-learn

• scikit-image

• StatsModels

• matplotlib

• PyTables

• NetworkX

• Cython

• NLTK

This image has been specially customized for Windows Azure, so it includes the Windows Azure Agent for Linux and the Azure SDK for Python. Together, these packages give you easy access to Windows Azure’s storage and queue services directly from iPython. For example, you can create, manipulate, and delete tables with a few lines of code in your notebook:

from azure.storage import TableService
ts = TableService(account_name, account_key)
ts.create_table('tasktable')

See https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-python for more information.

Screenshots

Download and Install

Follow these instructions to to create a new virtual machine in the Windows Azure Management Portal.

1. Decompress and upload the VHD Image to your Windows Azure Storage account.

2. Click New to show a list of Azure services.

3. Select Virtual Machine from the list.

4. Click From Gallery to start configuring your virtual machine.

5. Select My Images to see only your uploads.

6. Click the Next icon to finish configuring your virtual machine.