More Linux Love from Microsoft

[dom1310df]

Sitting down? Nothing in your mouth?

 

Microsoft has developed its own Linux distribution. And Azure runs it to do networking.

 

 

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux_repeat_microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux/

 

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.”

 

But it appears Redmond couldn't find SDN code to fits its particular needs, as it says ACS “... focuses on feature development based on Microsoft priorities” and “allows us to debug, fix, and test software bugs much faster. It also allows us the flexibility to scale down the software and develop features that are required for our datacenter and our networking needs.”

Basically, they finally realised that they can debug their own software quicker on top of something that has already been debugged by the Linux community, instead of trying to fix a problem in the switching software that turned out to be one of the many bugs in Windows. 

 

Microsoft's post revealing ACS says a fair bit about its features, but doesn't explain the relationship between Microsoft and Linux. Perhaps the complexity of the world's switching ecosystem was the reason: Redmond says it has demonstrated ACS across with “four ASIC vendors (Mellanox, Broadcom, Cavium, and the Barefoot software switch), six implementations of SAI (Broadcom, Dell, Mellanox, Cavium, Barefoot, and Metaswitch), and three applications stacks (Microsoft, Dell, and Metaswitch).”

Subramaniam's post ends by letting us know: “We’re 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.”

Next will they disaggregate windows from the PC hardware so I can finally buy a PC without cr*p on it?

 

Overall, it's good to see another application of Linux where it works much better than trying to fudge windows to work on it. 

 

 

Read the original post from Microsoft here.

 

[Kherm]

Noting but good news here. 

[Ekpyrosis]

That's indicative of how much confidence they have in the networking capabilities of Windows Server.

I'm interested to see if they managed to do it without violating the GPL this time ...

[Shoob]

I just hope they bring Visual Studio to Linux.

[Alurit]

I just hope they bring Visual Studio to Linux.

I would not hope in them giving gui stuff to linux

[Misanthrope]

You can do the same thing at home: run a linux box with a windows virtual machine with GPU pass through, Check Wendell's take on it (Warning: a lot of this will go way over your head if you never used Linux, when he says "go read the forums" he's not kidding)

 

[dom1310df]

I just hope they bring Visual Studio to Linux.

There's this : https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx

 

Haven't tried it though.

[Shoob]

There's this : https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx

 

Haven't tried it though.

It's a text editor, not a fully fledged IDE with a compiler and debugger and as far as I know it's just a fork of Atom.

[pjm0925]

Cool 

[LAwLz]

It's kind of sad how Microsoft have such a bad track record that as soon as I saw the headline I immediately thought "embrace, extend and extinguish".

I hope it's not, but I wouldn't be surprised if this will just result in yet another borderline illegal move by Microsoft to get more marketshare in networking.

[Nowak]

You can do the same thing at home: run a linux box with a windows virtual machine with GPU pass through, Check Wendell's take on it (Warning: a lot of this will go way over your head if you never used Linux, when he says "go read the forums" he's not kidding)

 

I believe this is more aimed at professionals than home users. Information relevant to home users is not relevant to business users.

[Misanthrope]

It's kind of sad how Microsoft have such a bad track record that as soon as I saw the headline I immediately thought "embrace, extend and extinguish".

I hope it's not, but I wouldn't be surprised if this will just result in yet another borderline illegal move by Microsoft to get more marketshare in networking.

 

Doubt it: Satya Nadella is just positioning to take Azure and Windows' cloud service as their main bread and butter income. That's why he seems uninterested in Windows 10 making any profits that are not related to tying in the Azure and windows services ecosystem to as many people as possible. This is something I expect to continue in the business side as well I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually just gives away the OS and the entire office suit and such if you agree to sign up for their network infrastructure and cloud services.

 

And at that point they're no longer a company that develops software, they're a company that sells sever and network capabilities that happens to tie in some software to make it work but it won't be a necessity: they will happily allow Linux servers and clients as long as they're well, paying for the Azure cloud crap.

[Misanthrope]

I believe this is more aimed at professionals than home users. Information relevant to home users is not relevant to business users.

 

Not to say that GTA V is not professional business, but he focuses heavily on GPU pass-through and mentions how it's useful for compute and other stuff like premiere but at the end of the day, Wendell's the kinda guy who has a metric ton of knowledge in his head about how to do stuff just so he can do something like automatically hunt down, download and remove commercials from star trek episodes (seriously all bots, automatically doing all of that and dumping it on the NAS) or play GTA V with the PGP crew.

[Guest Kloaked]

Could you fix your formatting for dark users please

[Nowak]

Not to say that GTA V is not professional business, but he focuses heavily on GPU pass-through and mentions how it's useful for compute and other stuff like premiere but at the end of the day, Wendell's the kinda guy who has a metric ton of knowledge in his head about how to do stuff just so he can do something like automatically hunt down, download and remove commercials from star trek episodes (seriously all bots, automatically doing all of that and dumping it on the NAS) or play GTA V with the PGP crew.

I don't doubt that Wendell's a smart guy. He certainly is. It's just that that video seems to be more for home users than it is professionals. Of course, anyone can do something like this, but a business would probably look more at a pre-configured Linux system before they begin exploring making their own, especially if it has a good support contract to go with it.

[Trik'Stari]

Not to say that GTA V is not professional business, but he focuses heavily on GPU pass-through and mentions how it's useful for compute and other stuff like premiere but at the end of the day, Wendell's the kinda guy who has a metric ton of knowledge in his head about how to do stuff just so he can do something like automatically hunt down, download and remove commercials from star trek episodes (seriously all bots, automatically doing all of that and dumping it on the NAS) or play GTA V with the PGP crew.

See, now I want that kind of power damnit.

 

Must try harder to grow a beard.

[Misanthrope]

See, now I want that kind of power damnit.

 

Must try harder to grow a beard.

 

Just abstain from only growing it on your neck  B)

[Trik'Stari]

Just abstain from only growing it on your neck  B)

I thought that was where it was meant to be.

[Misanthrope]

I thought that was where it was meant to be.

 

Nah you wanna go for something right in between hipster and homeless.

[Fetzie]

I don't doubt that Wendell's a smart guy. He certainly is. It's just that that video seems to be more for home users than it is professionals. Of course, anyone can do something like this, but a business would probably look more at a pre-configured Linux system before they begin exploring making their own, especially if it has a good support contract to go with it.

For Linux to establish itself as a viable alternative to Windows, it has to appeal to the home user. Windows got its 90+% market share because it is everywhere. Everybody knows Windows. That is an incredible advantage. Without games, Linux will remain the domain of the insanely clever sys-admin team, while everybody else is on Windows.

The project Wendell was talking about was ostensibly aimed at making Linux more appealing to the home user, but the things he talks about are WAY beyond the abilities of the vast majority of Windows users. Setting up an EFI on a computer without one so that your graphics card gets initialized properly? How do you expect to convey that knowledge to a typical "home user" so that they can do it on their own?

This is a "home PC solution" for experienced sys admins, and I dare say that they would simply dual-boot Windows and Linux anyway, because it is easier.

[ttam]

This isn't an OS for you ladies to install and get magical speed powers of Linux and Windows.

 

It's a linux OS to run THEIR cloud servers

[IAMSWIFT1]

I just hope they bring Visual Studio to Linux.

If They Do That,I'll be Switching To Linux Soon

[patrickjp93]

I just hope they bring Visual Studio to Linux.

Already been done in the same sweep that brought it to Mac OS.

[Centurius]

For Linux to establish itself as a viable alternative to Windows, it has to appeal to the home user. Windows got its 90+% market share because it is everywhere. Everybody knows Windows. That is an incredible advantage. Without games, Linux will remain the domain of the insanely clever sys-admin team, while everybody else is on Windows.

The project Wendell was talking about was ostensibly aimed at making Linux more appealing to the home user, but the things he talks about are WAY beyond the abilities of the vast majority of Windows users. Setting up an EFI on a computer without one so that your graphics card gets initialized properly? How do you expect to convey that knowledge to a typical "home user" so that they can do it on their own?

This is a "home PC solution" for experienced sys admins, and I dare say that they would simply dual-boot Windows and Linux anyway, because it is easier.

The stuff he outlines isn't actually very hard and he actually went the much more complicated(though also more efficient) route. There are already virtualization tools available on Linux that will let you do the same thing with a lot less steps.

[RexinOridle]

No entirely sure if MS loving Linux or making love (f***ing) to Linux.