Posted on 09/17/2015 9:16:56 PM PDT by dayglored
Redmond reveals Azure Cloud Switch, its in-house software-defined networking OS
Sitting down? Nothing in your mouth?
Microsoft has developed its own Linux distribution. And Azure runs it to do networking.
Redmond's revealed that it's built something called Azure Cloud Switch (ACS), describing it as a cross-platform modular operating system for data center networking built on Linux and our foray into building our own software for running network devices like switches.
Kamala Subramanian, Redmond's principal architect for Azure Networking, writes that: At Microsoft, we believe there are many excellent switch hardware platforms available on the market, with healthy competition between many vendors driving innovation, speed increases, and cost reductions.
(Translation: Microsoft partners, we mean you no harm.)
However, what the cloud and enterprise networks find challenging is integrating the radically different software running on each different type of switch into a cloud-wide network management platform. Ideally, we would like all the benefits of the features we have implemented and the bugs we have fixed to stay with us, even as we ride the tide of newer switch hardware innovation.
(Translation: Software-defined networking (SDN) is a very fine idea.)
...
Subramaniam's post ends by letting us know: Were talking about ACS publicly as we believe this approach of disaggregating the switch software from the switch hardware will continue to be a growing trend in the networking industry and we would like to contribute our insights and experiences of this journey starting here.
That experience clearly includes Linux, not Windows, as the path to SDN.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Errr,... HUGH. And SERIES...
I imagine you might want to ping your list on this one...
We need that GIF of the little guys running back and forth wailing.
So, will they call it Minix, or we will have a third iOS?
Linosoft.
Lindows.
Winux.
Micrux.
Microlin.
Ah, they all sound creepy.
That already exists, by Andy Tannenbaum from the 80's. It was the system Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel on.
Yawn. Sounds like they have a bunch of networking iron they’re developing that runs embedded Linux. Half the world has already been doing this for nearly a decade.
Dave Cutler was the main reason that VMS learned almost nothing from Unix. He hated that so many of DEC’s customers preferred to install BSD on their PDPs and their VAXen.
He was working on the successor to VMS, when DEC pulled the plug. So he and most of his team went to Microsoft to build NT. Where his arguments with Richard Rashid (who’d built Mach, at Carnegie Mellon, before coming to Microsoft) we’re legendary.
Cutler was a lead developer on Azure.
If he were dead, he’d be rolling in his grave. (Though he seems to have been shuffled off to work on the Xbox, which is pretty much the same thing.)
Yep. "Lindows" was originally a Linux OS, and the trademarked name is owned by Microsoft, so that might be the one....
Cutler is/was brilliant and capable, no one admits otherwise. But had Microsoft used Unix lessons more during NT development, they would likely now have a much better Windows product. And it would be one that their engineers understand.
Oh well.
“Micrux” sounds too much like ‘horcrux’.
Voldemort is alive and well and living in Redmond......
Linux OSX
Yet another Linux distro? Yawn. Check out https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg for a graphical snapshot. Given that there are tools both online and off that let anyone custom spin their own distro ... someone using a flavor of embedded Linux as a platform to run their software on isn’t particularly exciting. Though I guess putting Microsoft and Linux in the same sentence gets some base level of attention...
John has a long mustache. The chair is along the wall.
John has a long mustache. The chair is along the wall.
Is he related to the Andrew Tannenbaum who very publicly stated in 1992 that Linux was obsolete?
it not a personal computer OS
It's generally too slow to be useful outside the single platform that is doing the computing.
VMWare has the v-switch and it works OK to define multiple vlans in the cluster.
But when that data exits it always goes through ASIC based switches and routers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.