Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares about that?
Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first impressions?
Yes, it was a bit of one-click to world peace. Big pluses: Federated Identity. Test on virtual cloud emulator running at offline dev system. Uncertain: Storage model. Is it only via Live Services? MS marketing: You already know how to code it. (Emphasized multiple times by every speaker.)
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:49 AM, Chris Sears <cse...@gmail.com> wrote: > Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote > was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many > Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today > (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and > some new stuff.
> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what > they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond > the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things > more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to > quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as > part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. > Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, > federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your > application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and > XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares > about that?
> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of > Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP > testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's > style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to > competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward > marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit > too grandiose.
> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is about cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or S3: pay by the GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, not Active Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion no doubt) if we have to also change the API.
Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The > keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a > roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services > already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, > SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing > what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... > go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways > that make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their > extensive base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made > several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red > Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to > talk about how you could interoperate with partners, federate > identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your > application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual > Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there > somewhere, but who cares about that?
> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out > parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be > available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely > Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML > and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some > not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well > under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy say that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within 2x of the whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a big deal because there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your average VB/Studio developer to the skills necessary to run something on EC2? This suddenly makes the cloud available to them.
IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big deal too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits using distributed services except for only the most rudimentary things....
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is about cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or S3: pay by the GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, not Active Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion no doubt) if we have to also change the API.
Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares about that?
Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first impressions?
I agree with both here. MSFT's play is crucial but if the offerings are not translated i easy-2-understand terms, you might really lose that increasingly flattened mass consumerspace, which is what the whole CC is all about.
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> wrote: > Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
> I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy say > that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within 2x of the > whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a big deal because > there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your average VB/Studio developer > to the skills necessary to run something on EC2? This suddenly makes the > cloud available to them.
> IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big deal > too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits using > distributed services except for only the most rudimentary things....
> CM
> -----Original Message----- > *From:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto: > cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Steve Bjorg > *Sent:* Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM > *To:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > *Subject:* Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
> Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is about > cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or S3: pay by the > GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
> Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving > 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, not Active > Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion no doubt) if we > have to also change the API.
> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a > must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> On Oct 27, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Chris Sears wrote:
> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote > was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many > Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today > (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and > some new stuff.
> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what > they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond > the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things > more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to > quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as > part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. > Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, > federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your > application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and > XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares > about that?
> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of > Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP > testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's > style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to > competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward > marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit > too grandiose.
> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
As you already know, Windows servers are now also available on EC2. Did yo check the prices? SQL server costs up to $3.20/hr. For .NET/ ASP.NET apps, Mono runs quite nicely on Linux as well, giving a good target environment without the Microsoft tax. Of course, you can forget about SQL services, SharePoint services, etc. I guess it depends on your needs. In that regard, nowhere did it say that the traditional Microsoft server-based programming model would be the same on Azure. My guess is it will require quite a bit of mental rewiring to take advantage off, but let's argue that once more details emerge. :)
You're absolutely right on the federated identity stuff. That is a pain. I would guess that Azure will only federate with MS servers though, which will be limiting.
I guess, I'm coming from the standpoint that (a) I want to be able to use whatever is most cost-effective and (b) want to be able to switch to another providing if it makes senses economically. In other words, I the want the cloud to be like car insurance: 15 minutes of research can save you 15% on your cloud bill! :) For that to work, we need uniform APIs though.
> Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
> I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy > say that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within > 2x of the whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a > big deal because there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your > average VB/Studio developer to the skills necessary to run something > on EC2? This suddenly makes the cloud available to them.
> IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big > deal too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits > using distributed services except for only the most rudimentary > things....
> CM
> -----Original Message----- > From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > ] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg > Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
> Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is > about cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or > S3: pay by the GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
> Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving > 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, > not Active Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion > no doubt) if we have to also change the API.
> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS > API a must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> On Oct 27, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Chris Sears wrote:
>> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The >> keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a >> roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services >> already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, >> SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
>> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing >> what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a >> market... go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie >> AWS) in ways that make things more enterprise friendly and >> leverages their extensive base of developers to quickly gain market >> share. They made several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure >> (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, >> they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, >> federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model >> your application into roles that includes work flows, all using >> Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there >> somewhere, but who cares about that?
>> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out >> parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be >> available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
>> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely >> Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses >> XML and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. >> Some not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit >> well under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
>> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first >> impressions?
> I agree with both here. MSFT's play is crucial but if the offerings > are not translated i easy-2-understand terms, you might really lose > that increasingly flattened mass consumerspace, which is what the > whole CC is all about.
> BTW: Wwhat does Azure mean anyways?
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> > wrote: > Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
> I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy > say that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within > 2x of the whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a > big deal because there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your > average VB/Studio developer to the skills necessary to run something > on EC2? This suddenly makes the cloud available to them.
> IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big > deal too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits > using distributed services except for only the most rudimentary > things....
> CM
> -----Original Message----- > From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > ] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg > Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
> Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is > about cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or > S3: pay by the GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
> Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving > 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, > not Active Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion > no doubt) if we have to also change the API.
> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS > API a must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> On Oct 27, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Chris Sears wrote:
>> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The >> keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a >> roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services >> already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, >> SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
>> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing >> what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a >> market... go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie >> AWS) in ways that make things more enterprise friendly and >> leverages their extensive base of developers to quickly gain market >> share. They made several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure >> (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, >> they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, >> federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model >> your application into roles that includes work flows, all using >> Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there >> somewhere, but who cares about that?
>> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out >> parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be >> available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
>> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely >> Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses >> XML and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. >> Some not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit >> well under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
>> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first >> impressions?
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:12:09 To: <cloud-computing@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
I agree with both here. MSFT's play is crucial but if the offerings are not
translated i easy-2-understand terms, you might really lose that
increasingly flattened mass consumerspace, which is what the whole CC is all
about.
BTW: Wwhat does Azure mean anyways?
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> wrote:
> Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
> I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy say
> that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within 2x of the
> whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a big deal because
> there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your average VB/Studio developer
> to the skills necessary to run something on EC2? This suddenly makes the
> cloud available to them.
> IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big deal
> too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits using
> distributed services except for only the most rudimentary things....
> CM
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:
> cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Steve Bjorg
> *Sent:* Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM
> *To:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
> Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is about
> cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or S3: pay by the
> GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
> Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving
> 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, not Active
> Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion no doubt) if we
> have to also change the API.
> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a
> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> On Oct 27, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Chris Sears wrote:
> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote
> was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many
> Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today
> (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and
> some new stuff.
> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what
> they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond
> the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things
> more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to
> quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as
> part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus.
> Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners,
> federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your
> application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and
> XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares
> about that?
> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of
> Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP
> testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's
> style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to
> competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward
> marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit
> too grandiose.
> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first
> impressions?
OK. You could be right about the pricing model. Non starter for lots of EC2 users. But then again, as I've said before, I think EC2 pricing is insanely low....
But you also have to remember that I can go to Fry's and by a TB for about $140 (AWS EBS), but getting that from NetApp (Azure) is going to be a little harder. One is not a substitute for the other.....
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:22 PM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
Chris,
As you already know, Windows servers are now also available on EC2. Did yo check the prices? SQL server costs up to $3.20/hr. For .NET/ASP.NET apps, Mono runs quite nicely on Linux as well, giving a good target environment without the Microsoft tax. Of course, you can forget about SQL services, SharePoint services, etc. I guess it depends on your needs. In that regard, nowhere did it say that the traditional Microsoft server-based programming model would be the same on Azure. My guess is it will require quite a bit of mental rewiring to take advantage off, but let's argue that once more details emerge. :)
You're absolutely right on the federated identity stuff. That is a pain. I would guess that Azure will only federate with MS servers though, which will be limiting.
I guess, I'm coming from the standpoint that (a) I want to be able to use whatever is most cost-effective and (b) want to be able to switch to another providing if it makes senses economically. In other words, I the want the cloud to be like car insurance: 15 minutes of research can save you 15% on your cloud bill! :) For that to work, we need uniform APIs though.
Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy say that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within 2x of the whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a big deal because there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your average VB/Studio developer to the skills necessary to run something on EC2? This suddenly makes the cloud available to them.
IMHO, I think the workflow and federated identity are a pretty big deal too. Their both a F'ing pain in the neck and often what limits using distributed services except for only the most rudimentary things....
CM
-----Original Message----- From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16 AM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
Unless pricing is revealed, this is just a non-event. Scaling is about cost. That was the big schtik with EC2: pay by the hour. Or S3: pay by the GB/mt. Super simple to understand.
Unless their storage API is S3 compatible, I don't see us moving 1,000,000+ object from AWS to ASP (I mean Azure Service Platform, not Active Server Pages; this one is going to create some confusion no doubt) if we have to also change the API.
Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made several references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to talk about how you could interoperate with partners, federate identities between your internal AD and the Cloud, model your application into roles that includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares about that?
Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some not so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well under one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first impressions?
Chris Sears wrote: > Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The > keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a > roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services > already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh, SQL > Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what > they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go > beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways that > make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive > base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made several > references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala > EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to talk about > how you could interoperate with partners, federate identities between > your internal AD and the Cloud, model your application into roles that > includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah > there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares about that?
> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts > of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to > CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely > Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML > and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some not > so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well under > one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
Their focus, like Google's, seems to be on running "applications in the cloud" rather than "virtual machines in the cloud". This is a deeper and longer range view than Amazon's.
Ozzie doesn't play catch up, ever. He plays to jump ahead. Deploying an infrastructure that can host arbitrarily scalable applications built from extant tools is a brilliant strategy (if they can pull it off, of course). I'd be surprised if they did anything as crude as exposing raw virtual machines. Microsoft will never try to be the low cost provider in a commodity market place. Either they have added value that justifies a premium, find another way to kill the competition (harder to do with every anti-trust agency in the world looking over their shoulders), or find another line of work.
-- Jim Starkey President, NimbusDB, Inc. 978 526-1376
Jim,
They have a raw mode for exposing the bare metal - most probably
at the VM level. They also said that in that mode, their availability,
health maintenance et al are off. Need o see the details, of course.
Cheers
<k/>
|From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-
|computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jim Starkey
|Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 1:11 PM
|To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
|Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
|
|
|Chris Sears wrote:
|> Microsoft announced their cloud offering at PDC this morning. The
|> keynote was quite light on specifics, but Azure sounds like it's a
|> roll-up of many Microsoft hosted and cloud-ish products/services
|> already available today (Online Services, Dynamics CRM, Live Mesh,
SQL
|> Server Data Services) and some new stuff.
|>
|> The new stuff is what's interesting. Microsoft seems to be doing what
|> they've done in the past when they play catch-up in a market... go
|> beyond the basic features offered by competitors (ie AWS) in ways
that
|> make things more enterprise friendly and leverages their extensive
|> base of developers to quickly gain market share. They made several
|> references to hosting VMs as part of Azure (code named Red Dog, ala
|> EC2), but that was never a focus. Instead, they chose to talk about
|> how you could interoperate with partners, federate identities between
|> your internal AD and the Cloud, model your application into roles
that
|> includes work flows, all using Visual Studio and XML... and oh yeah
|> there are VMs running in there somewhere, but who cares about that?
|>
|> Production pricing was never brought up. They'll be rolling out parts
|> of Azure in phases over the next few weeks that will be available to
|> CTP testers for free. http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx |>
|> Overall it was pretty much what you would expect. Definitely
|> Microsoft's style. Some good... takes inspiration from AWS, uses XML
|> and REST, open to competition at various levels of the stack. Some
not
|> so good... awkward marketing, many parts don't really fit well under
|> one umbrella, feels a bit too grandiose.
|>
|> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first
|> impressions?
|
|Their focus, like Google's, seems to be on running "applications in the
|cloud" rather than "virtual machines in the cloud". This is a deeper
|and longer range view than Amazon's.
|
|Ozzie doesn't play catch up, ever. He plays to jump ahead. Deploying
|an infrastructure that can host arbitrarily scalable applications built
|from extant tools is a brilliant strategy (if they can pull it off, of
|course). I'd be surprised if they did anything as crude as exposing
raw
|virtual machines. Microsoft will never try to be the low cost provider
|in a commodity market place. Either they have added value that
|justifies a premium, find another way to kill the competition (harder
to
|do with every anti-trust agency in the world looking over their
|shoulders), or find another line of work.
|
|--
|Jim Starkey
|President, NimbusDB, Inc.
|978 526-1376
|
|
|
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Bjorg <ste...@mindtouch.com> Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:35 PM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
Azure is a color name that is often used to describe the color of a cloudless sky. - Steve
-------------- Steve G. Bjorg http://wiki.mindtouch.com http://twitter.com/bjorg On Oct 27, 2008, at 12:12 PM, Tarry Singh wrote: I agree with both here. MSFT's play is crucial but if the offerings are not translated i easy-2-understand terms, you might really lose that increasingly flattened mass consumerspace, which is what the whole CC is all about.
BTW: Wwhat does Azure mean anyways?
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> wrote: Steve, not sure I agree with your assessment here at all....
I didn't see the whole presentation, but I thought I heard Ray Ozzy say that they would be 'market priced', which I take as being within 2x of the whatever else is out there. Second, I do see this as a big deal because there are so many MSFT developers. Compare your average VB/Studio developer to the skills necessary to run something on EC2? This suddenly makes the cloud available to them.
Steve Bjorg wrote: > Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS API a > must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to what a "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes or client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for uniform access.
We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without having to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
Chris Sears wrote: > I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
I have gone through their whitepaper in detail and I have to confess to liking what they are offering. I took some notes as i went through the whitepaper and compiled them here in an easy digestable bullet point form:
We have a lot of experience in .NET and Java; our BlueDragon is the only CFML engine that runs on .NET natively (currently powering MySpace.com) and we are excited by the fact we can potentially move BlueDragon.NET onto Azure.
But definitely lots of plays here at work, need some time to settle down and digest what it all really means. Devil in the detail though, namely $$$
I can see where you're coming from. Is that the general consensus? Use classes as abstractions to various cloud API implementations? Why not expect parity at the HTTP level like we do for browsers? In the future, when someone hands us a URI to a storage provide, should we really expect to know a priori which dialect our app must speak to that endpoint?
> Steve Bjorg wrote: >> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS >> API a >> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to > what a > "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes > or > client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
> We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a > uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
> Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for > uniform > access.
> We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage > API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to > worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on > with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without > having > to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
I looked through the offering, and it is indeed really powerful. Listening from the video, their SQL service even offers data-warehousing ability. There are some interesting tenants that it shares with Google App Engine:
1. Computing model is stateless - this enables scale-out 2. State is maintained via externalized services
There is a nasty developments that will totally break this paradigm:
The network is not faster than disk (and by disk, I mean solid state drives). In the world of multi-core and solid-state drives, it makes a lot of sense to have the data and the processing live on the same box. I suppose this can be somewhat remedied via caching & replication, but it gets complicated (warming up the cache / cache invalidation / etc). I don't know if fast data access is necessary for most OLTP applications.
EC2 gives you a bit more flexibility. You can chose to use EBS or you can chose to use the local disk. The reality is, we will probably have to switch to a different progamming model in the future. Who knows - Microsoft might introduce a MapReduce service takes care io intensive processing.
Regards, Alan Ho
----- Original Message ---- From: Alan Williamson (AW1) <a...@aw20.co.uk> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:54:41 AM Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
Chris Sears wrote: > I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first > impressions?
I have gone through their whitepaper in detail and I have to confess to liking what they are offering. I took some notes as i went through the whitepaper and compiled them here in an easy digestable bullet point form:
We have a lot of experience in .NET and Java; our BlueDragon is the only CFML engine that runs on .NET natively (currently powering MySpace.com) and we are excited by the fact we can potentially move BlueDragon.NET onto Azure.
But definitely lots of plays here at work, need some time to settle down and digest what it all really means. Devil in the detail though, namely $$$
__________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now at http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com.
You can expect it but you might be waiting a looooooong time. Using a Java abstraction layer will work but will be fragile unless it's data driven. Trying to keep up with the myriad changes from numerous vendors will be tough otherwise.
________________________________ From: Steve Bjorg <ste...@mindtouch.com> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:42:11 AM Subject: Re: parity with the AWS API
I can see where you're coming from. Is that the general consensus? Use classes as abstractions to various cloud API implementations? Why not expect parity at the HTTP level like we do for browsers? In the future, when someone hands us a URI to a storage provide, should we really expect to know a priori which dialect our app must speak to that endpoint?
> Steve Bjorg wrote: >> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS >> API a >> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to > what a > "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes > or > client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
> We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a > uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
> Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for > uniform > access.
> We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage > API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to > worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on > with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without > having > to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
What is your app relies on third-party tools for image manipulation or pdf rendering? With EC2 you can run anything you like, while GAE and Azure limit you to what is made available by the provider. Think of all the wonderful open source tools that you won't be able to use. I hope this can be addressed sooner than later.
I'm still betting on EC2 for now as the cloud platform of choice. RightScale is providing a nice dashboard into it. And since AWS is an open ecosystem, we can expect a healthy amount of competition which will keep RightScale prices and features growing nicely. If you think about it, this is very similar to the PC revolution where the open platform evolved much faster than the closed platforms of the day. Will history repeat itself?
> I looked through the offering, and it is indeed really powerful. > Listening from the video, their SQL service even offers data- > warehousing ability. There are some interesting tenants that it > shares with Google App Engine:
> 1. Computing model is stateless - this enables scale-out > 2. State is maintained via externalized services
> There is a nasty developments that will totally break this paradigm:
> The network is not faster than disk (and by disk, I mean solid state > drives). In the world of multi-core and solid-state drives, it makes > a lot of sense to have the data and the processing live on the same > box. I suppose this can be somewhat remedied via caching & > replication, but it gets complicated (warming up the cache / cache > invalidation / etc). I don't know if fast data access is necessary > for most OLTP applications.
> EC2 gives you a bit more flexibility. You can chose to use EBS or > you can chose to use the local disk. The reality is, we will > probably have to switch to a different progamming model in the > future. Who knows - Microsoft might introduce a MapReduce service > takes care io intensive processing.
> Regards, > Alan Ho
> ----- Original Message ---- > From: Alan Williamson (AW1) <a...@aw20.co.uk> > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:54:41 AM > Subject: Re: Microsoft Azure announced at PDC
> Chris Sears wrote: >> I expect more real details to emerge later today. Any other first >> impressions?
> I have gone through their whitepaper in detail and I have to confess > to > liking what they are offering. I took some notes as i went through > the > whitepaper and compiled them here in an easy digestable bullet point > form:
> We have a lot of experience in .NET and Java; our BlueDragon is the > only > CFML engine that runs on .NET natively (currently powering > MySpace.com) > and we are excited by the fact we can potentially move BlueDragon.NET > onto Azure.
> But definitely lots of plays here at work, need some time to settle > down > and digest what it all really means. Devil in the detail though, > namely $$$
> __________________________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark > your favourite sites. Download it now at > http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com.
I'd also like to see an abstraction not tied to a particular language but rather to a ubiquitous protocol - like HTTP - perhaps something along the lines of Atom/AP. In this way, java, .Net, Ruby, etc developers can access it.
And then of course each dialect-provider could do their own implementations and wrappers.
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Bjorg Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 10:42 AM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: parity with the AWS API
I can see where you're coming from. Is that the general consensus? Use classes as abstractions to various cloud API implementations? Why not expect parity at the HTTP level like we do for browsers? In the future, when someone hands us a URI to a storage provide, should we really expect to know a priori which dialect our app must speak to that endpoint?
On Oct 28, 2008, at 2:18 AM, Alan Williamson (AW1) wrote:
> Steve Bjorg wrote: >> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS >> API a >> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to > what a > "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes > or > client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
> We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a > uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
> Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for > uniform > access.
> We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage > API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to > worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on > with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without > having > to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose
from." (Andrew Tanenbaum)
But really, expecting parity on HTML/REST/WSDL/XYZ level boils down to
standardization. That will take time. As Ray says, looooooong time.
Meanwhile, classes and libraries abstracting the most common patterns
is a very sensible thing to do, and certainly can provide a useful
seed for later standardization.
On Oct 28, 4:12 pm, Ray Nugent <rnug...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> You can expect it but you might be waiting a looooooong time. Using a Java abstraction layer will work but will be fragile unless it's data driven. Trying to keep up with the myriad changes from numerous vendors will be tough otherwise.
> ________________________________
> From: Steve Bjorg <ste...@mindtouch.com>
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:42:11 AM
> Subject: Re: parity with the AWS API
> I can see where you're coming from. Is that the general consensus?
> Use classes as abstractions to various cloud API implementations? Why
> not expect parity at the HTTP level like we do for browsers? In the
> future, when someone hands us a URI to a storage provide, should we
> really expect to know a priori which dialect our app must speak to
> that endpoint?
> On Oct 28, 2008, at 2:18 AM, Alan Williamson (AW1) wrote:
> > Steve Bjorg wrote:
> >> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS
> >> API a
> >> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> > I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to
> > what a
> > "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes
> > or
> > client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
> > We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a
> > uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
> > Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for
> > uniform
> > access.
> > We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage
> > API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to
> > worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on
> > with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without
> > having
> > to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
> "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose > from." (Andrew Tanenbaum)
> But really, expecting parity on HTML/REST/WSDL/XYZ level boils down to > standardization. That will take time. As Ray says, looooooong time. > Meanwhile, classes and libraries abstracting the most common patterns > is a very sensible thing to do, and certainly can provide a useful > seed for later standardization.
> On Oct 28, 4:12 pm, Ray Nugent <rnug...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > You can expect it but you might be waiting a looooooong time. Using a > Java abstraction layer will work but will be fragile unless it's data > driven. Trying to keep up with the myriad changes from numerous vendors will > be tough otherwise.
> > ________________________________ > > From: Steve Bjorg <ste...@mindtouch.com> > > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > > Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:42:11 AM > > Subject: Re: parity with the AWS API
> > I can see where you're coming from. Is that the general consensus? > > Use classes as abstractions to various cloud API implementations? Why > > not expect parity at the HTTP level like we do for browsers? In the > > future, when someone hands us a URI to a storage provide, should we > > really expect to know a priori which dialect our app must speak to > > that endpoint?
> > On Oct 28, 2008, at 2:18 AM, Alan Williamson (AW1) wrote:
> > > Steve Bjorg wrote: > > >> Just curious, am I the only one who considers parity with the AWS > > >> API a > > >> must to switch? What other factors should be considered?
> > > I agree, however I do feel what we will see is not dissimilar to > > > what a > > > "gateway" did in the old network protocol days. We will see classes > > > or > > > client libraries that abstract services and distill them down to one.
> > > We are seeing this already from the likes of RightScale who have a > > > uniform interface to various cloud base providers.
> > > Being primarily a Java shop, we are working on Java classes for > > > uniform > > > access.
> > > We've released a number of already, but will be releasing our Storage > > > API that spans over 4 different providers with the user not needing to > > > worry about the logistics. This way the developer can simply get on > > > with embedded S3/Nirvanix/Mosso/FileSpace into their app without > > > having > > > to worry about the heavy lifting or needing to replumb their code.
Long time lurker - it is great to finally be able to speak in public. My apologies for jumping into this thread so late - I just came back from PDC.
On Oct 28, 2008, at 8:02 AM, Alan Ho wrote:
> EC2 gives you a bit more flexibility. You can chose to use EBS or > you can chose to use the local disk. The reality is, we will > probably have to switch to a different progamming model in the > future. Who knows - Microsoft might introduce a MapReduce service > takes care io intensive processing.
You can use local disk with Windows Azure too. For folks playing with the SDK, just add a LocalStorage element in the config file and use the RoleManager class to get to the path you should be writing to. Since this is local disk, we recommend that people use this for ephemeral/cache/scratch data since it can disappear (since it isn't replicated, etc, etc).
I also see a lot of questions around the stateless programming model. Yes, this is the pattern and template we're pushing at PDC. However, this is just one example of a Windows Azure service model or rather, the specific service model we're exposing at PDC. If you saw the keynote or Yousef Khalidi's talk or Erick Smith's talk at PDC (the videos should be up on channel9.msdn.com or will be up soon), you'll see that we can construct complex service models for you to model your service at a higher abstraction level. Over time, we'll definitely be opening up more of these service modelling capabilities. We use this stuff everyday - our storage service itself runs on one of these service models.
> What is your app relies on third-party tools for image manipulation or > pdf rendering? With EC2 you can run anything you like, while GAE and > Azure limit you to what is made available by the provider. Think of > all the wonderful open source tools that you won't be able to use. I > hope this can be addressed sooner than later.
As far as third party libraries go, any .NET code that can run on medium trust can work today (and you have a ton of PDF and image manipulation libs to choose from in .NET - open source as well as others :) ). We have committed to having native code support in 2009 so pretty much any of these should just work.
Please continue dispel any misinformation. It's good to have an MS- insider voice readily available... Hope Azure can become a viable alternative to EC2... both in capabilities and price performance. Competition is good! :)
>> What is your app relies on third-party tools for image manipulation >> or >> pdf rendering? With EC2 you can run anything you like, while GAE and >> Azure limit you to what is made available by the provider. Think of >> all the wonderful open source tools that you won't be able to use. I >> hope this can be addressed sooner than later.
> As far as third party libraries go, any .NET code that can run on > medium trust can work today (and you have a ton of PDF and image > manipulation libs to choose from in .NET - open source as well as > others :) ). We have committed to having native code support in 2009 > so pretty much any of these should just work.
Ben Bloch wrote: > I'd also like to see an abstraction not tied to a particular language but > rather to a ubiquitous protocol - like HTTP - perhaps something along the > lines of Atom/AP. In this way, java, .Net, Ruby, etc developers can access > it.
> And then of course each dialect-provider could do their own implementations > and wrappers.
I'm fairly confident something like S3 can be based on AtomPub.
Fwiw, I think protocol incompatibility is an inconvenience. The real lockins will be around data migration and metadata. Moving large volumes of data from one provider to another will be hard to infeasible (by large I mean hundreds of terabytes to petabytes) - I'm surprised no-one seems to be talking about this as it drives an architecture that prefers sending code to the data (the hadoop people seem to understand this very well). Metadata is both a lockin and lockout option - lockin if the protocol data doesn't expose all of it, and lockout if your new favoured provider can't actually store it. The latter is why systems that can support semi-structured/sparse metadata have an advantage over ones that are squarely relational.
|
