HDInsight clusters created after April 3, 2014, have the following changes:
- Windows Server 2012 R2 (Azure OS Family 4) as the default OS on the cluster
- .NET 4.5
- Updates to internal firewall rules
Windows Server 2012 R2
This update moves HDInsight clusters to the most recent version of the OS. This enables greater performance and reliability, as well as the ability to integrate with OS features specific to
OS Family 4.
.NET 4.5
As part of Windows Server 2012 R2, clusters now have .NET 4.5 available for use when submitting
.NET Map/Reduce,
LINQ to Hive, or .NET Streaming. This also enables the usage of the
research prototype for Dryad and Naiad
Updates to Internal Cluster Firewall Rules
Previously, inbound connections on cluster nodes (within the cluster) were constrained to executables hosted via java.exe. We have relaxed this restriction, allowing inbound connections to any executable on worker nodes. This is only for traffic within the cluster, there are no changes to external endpoints. An HDInsight has one external endpoint for leveraging the REST API's.