Microsoft’s cloud service to begin using machine learning

Microsoft’s Azure is “an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.”  The newest addition to the cloud service, Azure ML, could drastically change not only cloud services, but also data analysis.

Azure ML (the ML stands for machine learning) is a big development in the field of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that is essentially the ability of a computer to learn how to update and improve its own performance. Currently, machine learning algorithms are behind things like Netflix video suggestions and Facebook News Feed’s ability to show the user activity from the people most often interacted with.  Azure ML will use machine learning to do much more than that — it will actually build repetitive analytics services that can predict and change future events.

Traditional data analytics services do sometimes use some machine learning techniques like data mining, but these types of services are expensive and time consuming. They require constant scaling, managing, and monitoring by data scientists who must be proficient in whichever programming language is being used. Since popular programming languages tend to have a steep learning curve, the supply of competent data scientists is limited.

With Azure ML, however, the entire platform uses machine learning, so data scientists will not be required to manage and monitor it. This greatly reduces the cost by eliminating the high prices charged by data scientists. Additionally, Azure ML is a much better tool, because as Microsoft corporate VP Josh Sirosh says, “Traditional data analysis let you predict the future. Machine learning lets you change the future.” Azure ML users will be able to use the technology to predict all manner of things, from an increase in demand to elevator breakdowns to disease outbreaks. Presumably they will then be able to change the future so that the events are more favorable.

Currently, Azure ML is not available for public preview, but Microsoft has made a private preview available to its corporate partners that is being used to help their customers with things like fraud detection and determining what products a customer is most likely to buy next. The public preview will be made available in July.

By MaryElizabeth Koepele

Story via technet.com