As announced in Tom Keane’s data launch announcement, we are pleased to bring the general availability of Azure HDInsight on Linux in Microsoft Azure Government, as well as, Power BI US Government with Office 365 US Government Community subscriptions.

HDInsight

Azure HDInsight deploys and provisions clusters from the Apache Hadoop ecosystem (including Spark, Storm, Hbase) in the cloud, providing a software framework designed to manage, analyze, and report on big data. To see how HDInsight on Linux integrates into Government-specific data solutions, check out the demo here.

HDInsight Premium is currently in Preview in public. You can expect Premium in Azure Government in the coming months.

Benefits include:

• Automatic provisioning of Hadoop clusters.
• High availability and reliability of clusters.
• Integration with other Azure services, including Web apps and SQL Database.

Limitations:

• HDInsight is not available on Windows
• Azure Data Lake Store is not currently available in Azure Government. Azure Blob Storage is the only available storage option at this time.

Additional Resources:

• Azure HDInsight on Linux in Azure Government
• Azure HDInsight on Linux overview
• Getting started using Linux-based Hadoop in HDInsight

Power BI

Power BI gives you the powerful tools needed to visualize, analyze, and share your data. Monitor your business and get answers quickly with rich dashboards. Check out this demo to see how easy it is to use Power BI to create a Government-specific data solution.

To learn more about Power BI US Government, check out the Power BI for US Government customer documentation here. You can also learn how to get started with Power BI US Government here.

The following features are available in Power BI US Government:

• Create and view rich dashboards and reports
• Data capacity limits
• Scheduled data refresh
• Refreshable team dashboards
• Active Directory groups for sharing and managing access control
• Import data and reports from Excel, CSV, and Power BI Desktop files
• Data Management Gateway
• All data is encrypted in both Azure SQL and Blob Storage for Power BI
• Connect to services with content packs

There are some feature gaps between Power BI US Government and Power BI Commercial. Please read the known issues here to learn more.

We welcome your comments and suggestions to help us continually improve your Azure Government experience. To stay up to date on all things Azure Government, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and to receive emails, click “Subscribe by Email!” on the Azure Government Blog. To experience the power of Azure Government for your organization, sign up for an Azure Government Trial.