Indian Business Schools Alumni try to grow more equal

A message from one the IIM (Indian Institute of Management) alumni networks, just an example of how any global organization should make extra efforts to make things more equal- and (thus position their brand for a differentiated place for attracting talent)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Management

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), are graduate business schools in India that also conduct research and provide consultancy services in the field of management to various sectors of the Indian economy. They were created by the Indian Government[1] with the aim of identifying the brightest intellectual talent[1] available in the student community of India and training it in the best management techniques available in the world, to ultimately create a pool of elite managers to manage and lead the various sections of the Indian economy.

The IIMs are considered the top business schools in India.[3] All the IIMs are completely autonomous institutes owned and financed by the Central Government of India. In order of establishment, the IIMs are located at Calcutta (Kolkata), Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Kozhikode (Calicut), Indore, Shillong, Ranchi, Rohtak, Raipur, Trichy, Kashipur and Udaipur. (My alma mater is Lucknow)

 

IIMs being role models have shared knowledge and skills with other institutions to improve their quality and standards in management education


————————————————————————————————————–
IIM A Alumni Association has been reaching out to the alumni associations of other IIMs to broad base the brotherhood (no offense to the fairer sex. Couldn’t think of a replacement word).

IM Calcutta Alumni Association has been conducting a lecture series and has invited us for the next edition. The topic is “The Unlimited Person”

India’s ambitions today – particulary reflected in the Corporate Sector – are Unlimited. What mind-set does it take to realise these ambitions ? Minds that live in the past or in the future – as too many Indian minds do – limit themselves, their companies and their country.

This presentation gives several examples of our current average mind-set and talks about ways in which an unlimited mind-set can emerge, creating “The Unlimited Person”

The speaker will be IIM Calcutta alumnus Shashi Maudgal, Chief Marketing Officer of Hindalco Industries of the Aditya Birla Group. The date is Friday June 24th at Gulmohar at the India Habitat Centre . Time 7 pm.

We hope you will come for this lecture and benefit from Shashi’s experience and insights.

Jayaraman -PGP ’70 / Sunil Kala PGP ’73 / Salil Agrawal PGP ’83

T. Venkateswaran PGP ’85 / Rahul Aggarwal PGP ’94

Citrix Webinar – Time Management for better Time Sharing

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I always liked Citrix products when I was a member of the Technical Advisory Board at the University of Tennessee. I especially liked enabling SAS software , R software, Matlab software , ONLY from a browser.

Data Mining through cloud computing, yes University of Tennessee’s analytics server http://analytics.utk.edu was way ahead in 2009- all these softwares at one portal no software needed on your own PC, simply upload data and work on any analytics software.

Here is a nice citrix webinar on managing Time (so you can read more webinars! nah. I think Youtube live streaming events with interactive question and answers is the way of the future while webinars are for Baby Boomers- you can do a test and control experiment yourself if you are in the webinar business. its a web2.oinar)

Register here

http://learn.gotomeeting.com/forms/26May11-APAC-ANZ-G2MC-WBR-L1?url=decisionstats

Standard Disclosure- I have not received any monetary or indirect compensation for promoting this webinar.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Interruptions are productivity killers – between email, phone calls and back-to-back meetings, how do you find time to work on your top priorities?

Join top time-management guru Kent Curtis and learn how to stop “living in your inbox” and start prioritising tasks, messages and appointments according to what is most important.

This webinar takes the best principles from FranklinCovey’s world-class productivity training and teaches you how to apply them while using Microsoft Outlook as your scheduling tool.

Attend this interactive, one-hour webinar to:

Stay focused every day with a reliable planning system utilising Microsoft Outlook.
Control competing demands such as email, voice mail, meetings and interruptions.
Apply a planning process that gets better business results.
Reduce stress by eliminating low priority activities and distractions.
Register for the Webinar

Please forward this to colleagues who might be interested in learning more.

Kind regards,

H.R. Shiever | Managing Director – Asia Pacific

Citrix Online
A division of Citrix Systems, Inc.
http://www.citrixonline.com

Online Meetings Made Easy

GoToMeeting Corporate
Live Webinar

Title:

The New Time Management: Stay Focused Every Day with Reliable Planning

Date:

Thursday, 26 May
Time:

12 Noon Australian EST
10 AM Singapore SGT
7.30 AM India ST
Speakers:
Kent Curtis, Senior Consultant, FranklinCovey

Register here

http://learn.gotomeeting.com/forms/26May11-APAC-ANZ-G2MC-WBR-L1?url=decisionstats

Interview- Top Data Mining Blogger on Earth , Sandro Saitta

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If you do a Google search for Data Mining Blog- for the past several years one Blog will come on top. data mining blog – Google Search http://bit.ly/kEdPlE

To honor 5 years of Sandro Saitta’s blog (yes thats 5 years!) , we cover an exclusive interview with him where he reveals his unique sauce for cool techie blogging.

Ajay- Describe your journey as a scientist and data miner, from early experiences, to schooling to your work/research/blogging.

Sandro- My first experience with data mining was my master project. I used decision tree to predict pollen concentration for the following week using input data such as wind, temperature and rain. The fact that an algorithm can make a computer learn from experience was really amazing to me. I found it so interesting that I started a PhD in data mining. This time, the field of application was civil engineering. Civil engineers put a lot of sensors on their structure in order to understand how they behave. With all these sensors they generate a lot of data. To interpret these data, I used data mining techniques such as feature selection and clustering. I started my blog, Data Mining Research, during my PhD, to share with other researchers.

I then started applying data mining in the stock market as my first job in industry. I realized the difference between image recognition, where 99% correct classification rate is state of the art, and stock market, where you’re happy with 55%. However, the company ambiance was not as good as I thought, so I moved to consulting. There, I applied data mining in behavioral targeting to increase click-through rates. When you compare the number of customers who click with the ones who don’t, then you really understand what class imbalance mean. A few months ago, I accepted a very good opportunity at SICPA. I’m looking forward to resolving new challenges there.

Ajay- Your blog is the top ranked blog for “data mining blog”. Could you share some tips on better blogging for analytics and technical people

Sandro- It’s always difficult to start a blog, since at the beginning you have no reader. Writing for nobody may seem stupid, but it is not. By writing my first posts during my PhD I was reorganizing my ideas. I was expressing concepts which were not always clear to me. I thus learned a lot and also improved my English level. Of course, it’s still not perfect, but I hope most people can understand me.

Next come the readers. A few dozen each week first. To increase this number, I then started to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by reading books and blogs. I tested many techniques that increased Data Mining Research visibility in the blogosphere. I think SEO is interesting when you already have some content published (which means not at the very beginning of your blog). After a while, once your blog is nicely ranked, the main task is to work on the content of the blog. To be of interest, your content must be particular: original, informative or provocative for example. I also had the chance to have a good visibility thanks to well-known people in the field like Kevin Hillstrom, Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro, Will Dwinnell / Dean Abbott, Vincent Granville, Matthew Hurst and many others.

Ajay- Whats your favorite statistical software and what are the various softwares that you have worked with.
Could you compare and contrast these software as well.

Sandro- My favorite software at this point is SAS. I worked with it for two years. Once you know the language, you can perform ETL and data mining so easily. It’s also very fast compared to others. There are a lot of tools for data mining, but I cannot think of a tool that is as powerful as SAS and, in the same time, has a high-level programming language behind it.

I also worked with R and Matlab. R is very nice since you have all the up-to-date data mining algorithms implemented. However, working in the memory is not always a good choice, especially for ETL. Matlab is an excellent tool for prototyping. It’s not so fast and certainly not done for ETL, but the price is low regarding all the possibilities for data mining. According to me, SAS is the best choice for ETL and a good choice for data mining. Of course, there is the price.

Ajay- What are your favorite techniques and training resources for learning basics of data mining to say statisticians or business management graduates.

Sandro- I’m the kind of guy who likes to read books. I read data mining books one after the other. The fact that the same concepts are explained differently (and by different people) helps a lot in learning a topic like data mining. Of course, nothing replaces experience in the field. You can read hundreds of books, you will still not be a good practitioner until you really apply data mining in specific fields. My second choice after books is blogs. By reading data mining blogs, you will really see the issues and challenges in the field. It’s still not experience, but we are closer. Finally, web resources and networks such as KDnuggets of course, but also AnalyticBridge and LinkedIn.

Ajay- Describe your hobbies and how they help you ,if at all in your professional life.

Sandro- One of my hobbies is reading. I read a lot of books about data mining, SEO, Google as well as Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I’m a big fan of Asimov by the way. My other hobby is playing tennis. I think I simply use my hobbies as a way to find equilibrium in my life. I always try to find the best balance between work, family, friends and sport.

Ajay- What are your plans for your website for 2011-2012.

Sandro- I will continue to publish guest posts and interviews. I think it is important to let other people express themselves about data mining topics. I will not write about my current applications due to the policies of my current employer. But don’t worry, I still have a lot to write, whether it is technical or not. I will also emphasis more on my experience with data mining, advices for data miners, tips and tricks, and of course book reviews!

Standard Disclosure of Blogging- Sandro awarded me the Peoples Choice award for his blog for 2010 and carried out my interview. There is a lot of love between our respective wordpress blogs, but to reassure our puritan American readers- it is platonic and intellectual.

About Sandro S-



Sandro Saitta is a Data Mining Research Engineer at SICPA Security Solutions. He is also a blogger at Data Mining Research (www.dataminingblog.com). His interests include data mining, machine learning, search engine optimization and website marketing.

You can contact Mr Saitta at his Twitter address- 

https://twitter.com/#!/dataminingblog

Heritage Health Prize- Data Mining Contest for 3mill USD

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If Netflix was about 1 mill USD to better online video choices, here is a chance to earn serious money, write great code, and save lives!

From http://www.heritagehealthprize.com/

Heritage Health Prize
Launching April 4

Laptop

More than 71 Million individuals in the United States are admitted to
hospitals each year, according to the latest survey from the American
Hospital Association. Studies have concluded that in 2006 well over
$30 billion was spent on unnecessary hospital admissions. Each of
these unnecessary admissions took away one hospital bed from someone
else who needed it more.

Prize Goal & Participation

The goal of the prize is to develop a predictive algorithm that can identify patients who will be admitted to the hospital within the next year, using historical claims data.

Official registration will open in 2011, after the launch of the prize. At that time, pre-registered teams will be notified to officially register for the competition. Teams must consent to be bound by final competition rules.

Registered teams will develop and test their algorithms. The winning algorithm will be able to predict patients at risk for an unplanned hospital admission with a high rate of accuracy. The first team to reach the accuracy threshold will have their algorithms confirmed by a judging panel. If confirmed, a winner will be declared.

The competition is expected to run for approximately two years. Registration will be open throughout the competition.

Data Sets

Registered teams will be granted access to two separate datasets of de-identified patient claims data for developing and testing algorithms: a training dataset and a quiz/test dataset. The datasets will be comprised of de-identified patient data. The datasets will include:

  • Outpatient encounter data
  • Hospitalization encounter data
  • Medication dispensing claims data, including medications
  • Outpatient laboratory data, including test outcome values

The data for each de-identified patient will be organized into two sections: “Historical Data” and “Admission Data.” Historical Data will represent three years of past claims data. This section of the dataset will be used to predict if that patient is going to be admitted during the Admission Data period. Admission Data represents previous claims data and will contain whether or not a hospital admission occurred for that patient; it will be a binary flag.

DataThe training dataset includes several thousand anonymized patients and will be made available, securely and in full, to any registered team for the purpose of developing effective screening algorithms.

The quiz/test dataset is a smaller set of anonymized patients. Teams will only receive the Historical Data section of these datasets and the two datasets will be mixed together so that teams will not be aware of which de-identified patients are in which set. Teams will make predictions based on these data sets and submit their predictions to HPN through the official Heritage Health Prize web site. HPN will use the Quiz Dataset for the initial assessment of the Team’s algorithms. HPN will evaluate and report back scores to the teams through the prize website’s leader board.

Scores from the final Test Dataset will not be made available to teams until the accuracy thresholds are passed. The test dataset will be used in the final judging and results will be kept hidden. These scores are used to preserve the integrity of scoring and to help validate the predictive algorithms.

Teams can begin developing and testing their algorithms as soon as they are registered and ready. Teams will log onto the official Heritage Health Prize website and submit their predictions online. Comparisons will be run automatically and team accuracy scores will be posted on the leader board. This score will be only on a portion of the predictions submitted (the Quiz Dataset), the additional results will be kept back (the Test Dataset).

Form

Once a team successfully scores above the accuracy thresholds on the online testing (quiz dataset), final judging will occur. There will be three parts to this judging. First, the judges will confirm that the potential winning team’s algorithm accurately predicts patient admissions in the Test Dataset (again, above the thresholds for accuracy).

Next, the judging panel will confirm that the algorithm does not identify patients and use external data sources to derive its predictions. Lastly, the panel will confirm that the team’s algorithm is authentic and derives its predictive power from the datasets, not from hand-coding results to improve scores. If the algorithm meets these three criteria, it will be declared the winner.

Failure to meet any one of these three parts will disqualify the team and the contest will continue. The judges reserve the right to award second and third place prizes if deemed applicable.

 

Interview Anne Milley JMP

Here is an interview with Anne Milley, a notable thought leader in the world of analytics. Anne is now Senior Director, Analytical Strategy in Product Marketing for JMP , the leading data visualization software from the SAS Institute.

Ajay-What do you think are the top 5 unique selling points of JMP compared to other statistical software in its category?

Anne-

JMP combines incredible analytic depth and breadth with interactive data visualization, creating a unique environment optimized for discovery and data-driven innovation.

With an extensible framework using JSL (JMP Scripting Language), and integration with SAS, R, and Excel, JMP becomes your analytic hub.

JMP is accessible to all kinds of users. A novice analyst can dig into an interactive report delivered by a custom JMP application. An engineer looking at his own data can use built-in JMP capabilities to discover patterns, and a developer can write code to extend JMP for herself or others.

State-of-the-art DOE capabilities make it easy for anyone to design and analyze efficient experiments to determine which adjustments will yield the greatest gains in quality or process improvement – before costly changes are made.

Not to mention, JMP products are exceptionally well designed and easy to use. See for yourself and check out the free trial at www.jmp.com.

Download a free 30-day trial of JMP.

Ajay- What are the challenges and opportunities of expanding JMP’s market share? Do you see JMP expanding its conferences globally to engage global audiences?

Anne-

We realized solid global growth in 2010. The release of JMP Pro and JMP Clinical last year along with continuing enhancements to the rest of the JMP family of products (JMP and JMP Genomics) should position us well for another good year.

With the growing interest in analytics as a means to sustained value creation, we have the opportunity to help people along their analytic journey – to get started, take the next step, or adopt new paradigms speeding their time to value. The challenge is doing that as fast as we would like.

We are hiring internationally to offer even more events, training and academic programs globally.

Ajay- What are the current and proposed educational and global academic initiatives of JMP? How can we see more JMP in universities across the world (say India- China etc)?

Anne-

We view colleges and universities both as critical incubators of future JMP users and as places where attitudes about data analysis and statistics are formed. We believe that a positive experience in learning statistics makes a person more likely to eventually want and need a product like JMP.

For most students – and particularly for those in applied disciplines of business, engineering and the sciences – the ability to make a statistics course relevant to their primary area of study fosters a positive experience. Fortunately, there is a trend in statistical education toward a more applied, data-driven approach, and JMP provides a very natural environment for both students and researchers.

Its user-friendly navigation, emphasis on data visualization and easy access to the analytics behind the graphics make JMP a compelling alternative to some of our more traditional competitors.

We’ve seen strong growth in the education markets in the last few years, and JMP is now used in nearly half of the top 200 universities in the US.

Internationally, we are at an earlier stage of market development, but we are currently working with both JMP and SAS country offices and their local academic programs to promote JMP. For example, we are working with members of the JMP China office and faculty at several universities in China to support the use of JMP in the development of a master’s curriculum in Applied Statistics there, touched on in this AMSTAT News article.

Ajay- What future trends do you see for 2011 in this market (say top 5)?

Anne-

Growing complexity of data (text, image, audio…) drives the need for more and better visualization and analysis capabilities to make sense of it all.

More “chief analytics officers” are making better use of analytic talent – people are the most important ingredient for success!

JMP has been on the vanguard of 64-bit development, and users are now catching up with us as 64-bit machines become more common.

Users should demand easy-to-use, exploratory and predictive modeling tools as well as robust tools to experiment and learn to help them make the best decisions on an ongoing basis.

All these factors and more fuel the need for the integration of flexible, extensible tools with popular analytic platforms.

Ajay-You enjoy organic gardening as a hobby. How do you think hobbies and unwind time help people be better professionals?

Anne-

I am lucky to work with so many people who view their work as a hobby. They have other interests too, though, some of which are work-related (statistics is relevant everywhere!). Organic gardening helps me put things in perspective and be present in the moment. More than work defines who you are. You can be passionate about your work as well as passionate about other things. I think it’s important to spend some leisure time in ways that bring you joy and contribute to your overall wellbeing and outlook.

Btw, nice interviews over the past several months—I hadn’t kept up, but will check it out more often!

Biography–  Source- http://www.sas.com/knowledge-exchange/business-analytics/biographies.html

  • Anne Milley

    Anne Milley

    Anne Milley is Senior Director of Analytics Strategy at JMP Product Marketing at SAS. Her ties to SAS began with bank failure prediction at Federal Home Loan Bank Dallas and continued at 7-Eleven Inc. She has authored papers and served on committees for F2006, KDD, SIAM, A2010 and several years of SAS’ annual data mining conference. Milley is a contributing faculty member for the International Institute of Analytics. anne.milley@jmp.com

Windows Azure and Amazon Free offer

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For Hi-Computing folks try out Azure for free-

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/popup/popup.aspx?lang=en&locale=en-US&offer=MS-AZR-0001P#compute

Windows Azure Platform
Introductory Special

This promotional offer enables you to try a limited amount of the Windows Azure platform at no charge. The subscription includes a base level of monthly compute hours, storage, data transfers, a SQL Azure database, Access Control transactions and Service Bus connections at no charge. Please note that any usage over this introductory base level will be charged at standard rates.

Included each month at no charge:

  • Windows Azure
    • 25 hours of a small compute instance
    • 500 MB of storage
    • 10,000 storage transactions
  • SQL Azure
    • 1GB Web Edition database (available for first 3 months only)
  • Windows Azure platform AppFabric
    • 100,000 Access Control transactions
    • 2 Service Bus connections
  • Data Transfers (per region)
    • 500 MB in
    • 500 MB out

Any monthly usage in excess of the above amounts will be charged at the standard rates. This introductory special will end on March 31, 2011 and all usage will then be charged at the standard rates.

Standard Rates:

Windows Azure

  • Compute*
    • Extra small instance**: $0.05 per hour
    • Small instance (default): $0.12 per hour
    • Medium instance: $0.24 per hour
    • Large instance: $0.48 per hour
    • Extra large instance: $0.96 per hour

 

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Free Tier*

As part of AWS’s Free Usage Tier, new AWS customers can get started with Amazon EC2 for free. Upon sign-up, new AWScustomers receive the following EC2 services each month for one year:

  • 750 hours of EC2 running Linux/Unix Micro instance usage
  • 750 hours of Elastic Load Balancing plus 15 GB data processing
  • 10 GB of Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) plus 1 million IOs, 1 GB snapshot storage, 10,000 snapshot Get Requests and 1,000 snapshot Put Requests
  • 15 GB of bandwidth in and 15 GB of bandwidth out aggregated across all AWS services

 

Paid Instances-

 

Standard On-Demand Instances Linux/UNIX Usage Windows Usage
Small (Default) $0.085 per hour $0.12 per hour
Large $0.34 per hour $0.48 per hour
Extra Large $0.68 per hour $0.96 per hour
Micro On-Demand Instances
Micro $0.02 per hour $0.03 per hour
High-Memory On-Demand Instances
Extra Large $0.50 per hour $0.62 per hour
Double Extra Large $1.00 per hour $1.24 per hour
Quadruple Extra Large $2.00 per hour $2.48 per hour
High-CPU On-Demand Instances
Medium $0.17 per hour $0.29 per hour
Extra Large $0.68 per hour $1.16 per hour
Cluster Compute Instances
Quadruple Extra Large $1.60 per hour N/A*
Cluster GPU Instances
Quadruple Extra Large $2.10 per hour N/A*
* Windows is not currently available for Cluster Compute or Cluster GPU Instances.

 

NOTE- Amazon Instance definitions differ slightly from Azure definitions

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

Available Instance Types

Standard Instances

Instances of this family are well suited for most applications.

Small Instance – default*

1.7 GB memory
1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit)
160 GB instance storage
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m1.small

Large Instance

7.5 GB memory
4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.large

Extra Large Instance

15 GB memory
8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
1,690 GB instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m1.xlarge

Micro Instances

Instances of this family provide a small amount of consistent CPU resources and allow you to burst CPU capacity when additional cycles are available. They are well suited for lower throughput applications and web sites that consume significant compute cycles periodically.

Micro Instance

613 MB memory
Up to 2 EC2 Compute Units (for short periodic bursts)
EBS storage only
32-bit or 64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Low
API name: t1.micro

High-Memory Instances

Instances of this family offer large memory sizes for high throughput applications, including database and memory caching applications.

High-Memory Extra Large Instance

17.1 GB of memory
6.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
420 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: m2.xlarge

High-Memory Double Extra Large Instance

34.2 GB of memory
13 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.2xlarge

High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Instance

68.4 GB of memory
26 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 3.25 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: m2.4xlarge

High-CPU Instances

Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and are well suited for compute-intensive applications.

High-CPU Medium Instance

1.7 GB of memory
5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
350 GB of instance storage
32-bit platform
I/O Performance: Moderate
API name: c1.medium

High-CPU Extra Large Instance

7 GB of memory
20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
API name: c1.xlarge

Cluster Compute Instances

Instances of this family provide proportionally high CPU resources with increased network performance and are well suited for High Performance Compute (HPC) applications and other demanding network-bound applications. Learn more about use of this instance type for HPC applications.

Cluster Compute Quadruple Extra Large Instance

23 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cc1.4xlarge

Cluster GPU Instances

Instances of this family provide general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) with proportionally high CPU and increased network performance for applications benefitting from highly parallelized processing, including HPC, rendering and media processing applications. While Cluster Compute Instances provide the ability to create clusters of instances connected by a low latency, high throughput network, Cluster GPU Instances provide an additional option for applications that can benefit from the efficiency gains of the parallel computing power of GPUs over what can be achieved with traditional processors. Learn moreabout use of this instance type for HPC applications.

Cluster GPU Quadruple Extra Large Instance

22 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
2 x NVIDIA Tesla “Fermi” M2050 GPUs
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cg1.4xlarge

versus-

Windows Azure compute instances come in five unique sizes to enable complex applications and workloads.

Compute Instance Size CPU Memory Instance Storage I/O Performance
Extra Small 1 GHz 768 MB 20 GB* Low
Small 1.6 GHz 1.75 GB 225 GB Moderate
Medium 2 x 1.6 GHz 3.5 GB 490 GB High
Large 4 x 1.6 GHz 7 GB 1,000 GB High
Extra large 8 x 1.6 GHz 14 GB 2,040 GB High

*There is a limitation on the Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) size if you are deploying a Virtual Machine role on an extra small instance. The VHD can only be up to 15 GB.