Posted on 09/29/2015 5:17:52 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Even after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella proclaimed Microsoft loved Linux and Microsoft released a specialized Linux for switches, Azure Cloud Switch, many don't buy that Microsoft believes in Linux. What will it take? Maybe, it will be this: Microsoft has selected Ubuntu for its first Linux-based software-as-a service offering, HDInsight, Microsoft's big data Hadoop-on-Azure service.
Windows and Ubuntu working together.Microsoft has partnered with Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, and Hortonworks, a major developer of the Hadoop program. Hadoop enables distributed processing of big data over commodity server clusters and clouds. Together the three companies have made it possible to run HDInsight on Ubuntu on Microsoft's Azure cloud.
According to John Zannos, Canonical's VP of Cloud Alliances and Ecosystem, this isn't surprising. "Today, more than 20 percent of virtual machines on Azure are Linux and VM Depot has more than 1,000 Linux images. The vast majority of these images are Ubuntu."
Zannos added, "Over the last year Microsoft has been an active proponent of open-source software technologies, and we at Canonical are delighted to be Microsoft's Linux of choice in Azure and now HDInsight."
On the Microsoft side, T.K. Ranga Rengarajan, corporate VP of databases and big data, said, "The general availability of Azure HDInsight on Ubuntu Linux ... includes a service level agreement guarantee of 99.9% uptime and full technical support for the entire stack with the choice of running Hadoop workloads on Hortonworks Data Platform in Azure HDInsight using Ubuntu or Windows. There's also a growing ecosystem of ISV's delivering tools to create big data solutions on the Azure data platform with HDInsight."
Zannos continued. "Organizations have embraced HDInsight on Ubuntu because it makes it easier to move from their on-premises Hadoop deployments to the cloud." This is all part of Microsoft's Azure Data Lake plans to use Hortonworks' Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) to handle big data on the cloud.
"A key goal for both companies is to enable hybrid cloud computing," said Zannos. This will enable "the choice of on-premise or on-cloud computing for enterprise customers, with large-scale deployments that span both private infrastructure and public infrastructure. Ubuntu is a key part of that strategy. There are more big data solutions on Ubuntu than any other platform. All of this means minimal effort for Ubuntu customers to run their existing on-premise analytics workloads on Azure HDInsight."
Why should Microsoft bother with Ubuntu since it already has HDInsight running on Windows? Zannos explained, "Customers appreciate choice. Every substantial institution will use both Windows and Linux and wants the flexibility to choose the right platform for the workload. Having that choice in platform is very important to the marketplace. The collaboration between Microsoft and Canonical to create the option to run Azure HDInsight workloads on Ubuntu for Windows gives Azure customers flexibility in their big data processing decisions, both on premise, and in the cloud."
There you have it. In 2015, Microsoft has recognized that its users wants a choice between Linux and Windows applications even on its own cloud. This has nothing to do with believing in Linux as being the one true operating system. It has everything to do with delivering the services and choices its customers want.
Ping
Trying to pull us over onto the cloud?!
I trust Winblows (as well as Macinsuck/Apple) as far as Obunghole can throw Thunderthighs Cankle Clinton... :p
Linux is far more effective than Windows on servers. Systems like Windows are 90% user interface and 10% OS.
I recently installed the latest Ubuntu server on a 15-year-old computer that originally came with Win 2K. It runs perfectly, with very low CPU and memory usage at idle.
As far as I am concerned, the cloud sucks and will suck more over time. Makes no difference in whether it runs of WinDoz or Linux.
I recently switched from Xubuntu to Debian (XFCE) on this machine. Very please with the new install, only issue was detecting the on board sound card. Boots much faster than Xubuntu did, but that may be the issue with detecting the sound card.
Agreed. I can't understand why people place so little value on control of their servers that they are willing to grant control to others.
Getting “into” a cloud platform is relatively easy. Getting your data out of a cloud for use back at the homebase datacenter is another can of worms entirely.
RedHat better watch out. They make a fine product but don’t seem as nimble as Canonical or even Oracle (Oracle is crushing Redhat on lic costs for their linux offering; they have a nice script that will re-brand your RHEL install to OEL in as little as 10-15 minutes).
I see this choice as more of a play at stomping on RedHat while embracing linux.
Agree. I want my data and apps on my machine. Not out there somewhere I cannot control.
It is bad enough trying to keep malicious software off my own systems. Headshake.
It's another form of vendor lockin.
Sorry to hear of your experience. I have been using it for RAC’s. Combined with the UEK kernel and ASM libraries baked into their offering, administration has become far easier.
The front end is running JVM’s, so that suck is there regardless of platform OS.
Thanks to ShadowAce for the ping!!
Have you ever installed server core or nano server?
I was working in the IT department of a rather large company based in San Jose area. Or printing solution was running 4 Linux / CUPS based print servers for all of our print queues. At the time, there were 13 main campus buildings, each composed of a couple of floors. So I estimate 10,000 employees on any given day.
Microsoft came in and said they could do better. Being good corporate partners, we decided that Microsoft should be given the opportunity to replace the Linux boxes. After installing 20 brand new MS servers, and still not able to handle the load, MS was asked to leave.
That was during the NT era, so things may have changed by now.
I’m not liking this cozying up between MS and Canonical. Looks like I’ve got an ubuntu -> debian move in my future.
I saw the evil of oracle up close and personal in how they started licensing Weblogic after they absorbed BEA. We had a hell of a time upgrading some major app servers because of the difference between grandfathered licenses, and new ones you had to get if you virtualized. We were quoted $1M for licensing alone on a set of clusters we wanted to migrate from P2V.
Between that, and the directory mess you get when you installed the oracle branded apache for oracle financials, and I wanted to gag.
Not really. Server sprawl is huge in the microsoft world.
The Cloud (and Linux in the Cloud) is here to stay despite what various naysayers say. Sure keep your photos, videos, songs, spreadsheets and what have you on your home servers. Back them up 2x, 3x to other servers, portable disks. Knock yourselves out.
But the Cloud is here to stay for industrial strength applications. Hadoop being one of them but by no means certainly not the only one. You can also reject gmail, facebook, twitter, dropbox, pinterest and on and on - chances are you’re using the cloud in one way or another and just not knowing it.
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