Microsoft is stepping up its support for Hadoop with its Windows Server and Windows Azure deliverables and will be offering its contributions back to the Apache Software Foundation and the Hadoop project.

By developing its own implementations of the Hadoop stack, Microsoft is looking to provide customers with another option for big data/unstructured data storage and access, officials said.

Microsoft officials made the announcement at the SQL PASS Summit on October 12. Company execs also confirmed at the event what I’ve been expecting for the past month or so: SQL Server “Denali” will be officially named SQL Server 2012 when it ships in the first part of 2012. (Server and Tools boss Satya Nadella said earlier this year to expect Denali to ship in the “early part” of next year.) Denali is currently at the Community Technology Preview (CTP) 3 stage; next stop is RTM and general availability (no beta is on the roadmap).

Microsoft is going to be working with Hadoop core contributors from Yahoo Hadoop spinoff Hortonworks.