Azure Machine Learning: simplified predictive analytics

Last week I wrote about using AWS's Machine Learning tool to built your models from an open dataset. Since then, feeling I needed more control over what happens under the hood – in particular as far as which kind of models are trained and evaluated – I decided to give Microsoft's Azure Machine Learning a try. In case you're not yet familiar with Microsoft Azure, we are talking about a Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution created by Microsoft back in 2010. Cloud Academy has some excellent courses introducing you to the platform. Azure Machine Learning was launched in February this year, and was immediately recognized as a game changer in applying the power of the cloud to solve the problem of big data processing.