The VM Role, Support for Linux Are Huge Changes for Microsoft Azure
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Andrew Brust, CEO of Microsoft analyst and advisory firm Blue Badge Insights, based in New York City, said, The Linux thing is a long time in coming. When Microsoft went in on the Attachmate-Novell deal in 2010, and did it for IP ownership, I thought one big reason was getting Linux to work really well on Hyper-V and Azure. Now thats here. In general, tech heterogeneity is a reality, and a reality that Azure needs to accommodate. Supporting multiple OSes, languages, IDEs [integrated development environments], database models [i.e. relational and NoSQL], source-code control systems and dev clients [including the Mac] just makes sense.
Meanwhile, Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC, said he saw Windows Azure as a PaaS from the beginning. However, the first release overshot the mark. Not everybody was ready for it or willing to have to re-architect their apps. So Microsoft had to circle back around and flesh out their offering.
As enterprise adoption of Windows Azure and cloud computing grows, the importance of coming together to solve interoperability issues is only growing. We at Microsoft want to work with the ecosystem of vendors and communities to deliver cloud solutions to customers based on their specific needs and scenarios, said Sandy Gupta, general manager of the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft.
Microsoft has been hard at work at the fleshing part, working with partners to get there. For instance, RightScale has been working together with Microsoft toward this release of Azure that supports IaaS, and is offering a private beta of RightScale support for Microsoft's "technical preview" of Azure, Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale, told eWEEK. RightScale will be joining Microsoft at their Meet Windows Azure event in San Francisco on June 7.
In our view, this is really great news, and more evidence that cloud infrastructure now dominates as the architecture for 'the new IT, Crandell said. Microsoft knows how to run cloud-scale global data center operations at a high level of excellence. It's a cloud you can depend on. They've shown boldness opening their platform and embracing other technologies such as Linux virtual machines and hosting Git repositories. Offering both PaaS and IaaS in Azure with a consistent set of APIs and toolsand from a single shared infrastructureis a compelling new capability that significantly broadens its previous audience and the types of workloads that can be supported.
