13 ms·

Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

186 points by sylens 7y ago

jxcole 7y ago
It's pretty hard to get upset about this since nobody actually runs Windows Server on the Cloud anyway. Even Azure is dominated by Linux server usage.
- dbuder 7y ago
  Plenty of companies use Azure and MS all the way, media/marketing people think Linux is nerdy and too hard and those nice folks from MS came by and bought them lunch last week, would be rude not to go with them...
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  "Nobody runs Windows Server on the Cloud" is a massive stretch. It may not be a leader but it's definitely used https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/operating-systems/windows-server-market-share https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/operating-systems/wind... Also if your stack is .NET you definitely need Windows Server. Even Amazon has some things built on .NET/Windows Server (woot.com)
  - grezql 7y ago
    .net core, which the flagship of the future, is cross platform. I am running it in ubuntu production environment for an App i made. Very stable.
    - celticmusic 7y ago
      Over time what you're implying here is true, but in the short term there are a lot of people stuck on .net Framework and it's difficult to get off of it. It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish. But lots of companies are foolish.
      - Ididntdothis 7y ago
        “It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish.” If it only were that easy to move to Core. I thought I could sneak that transition into a few projects but there are a ton of little obstacles that make such an effort lots of work.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        yep, which is why they should be working on it now. The fact that you can target .net standard with framework means TODAY you can sequester your framework specific things behind DLL's and put everything else on .net core officially. I honestly think there's going to be a huge consulting/freelance market for it soon. I wasn't trying to imply that it's easy, just that everyone should be planning out how to do it so they can do it slowly over the next few years rather than all at once in panic mode. Props to MS for ensuring the two can live side by side the way they have. It makes the transition a LOT easier if you're smart enough to start it early and let it have a long tail. I've personally done this a few times already.
        Ididntdothis 7y ago
        The other option is to stick to what works and see if MS change strategy again as they seem to be doing very few years.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        MS has not changed strategies since starting .net core. It's on v3, going on v4. If you're still unsure what the future is going to be, you've missed the boat.
        Ididntdothis 7y ago
        I guess that’s true. The .NET framework strategy is pretty consistent. I guess I am still traumatized by the mess they have created with their desktop UI toolkits.
    - davedx 7y ago
      Yes and no. I work on some ASP .NET applications and on a big .net core project. The .net core project indeed runs fine on Linux in AWS. It's a great success story for us. The ASP .NET projects I maintain have a budget that doesn't easily allow us to just migrate them to .net core. There are some hairy legacy libs and code in there that would also prove challenging to resolve too.
      - pathartl 7y ago
        Yeah, this right here. I work on a MVC 5 app that uses some pretty large legacy libraries that's going to be hard to move from. Some of it is legacy stuff that may or may not have a .NET Core or .NET Standard equivalent. Others like Entity Framework have a Core equivalent that changes some paradigms to be a bit more modern, but ultimately creates a situation where it's not a drop in replacement. There's also the question of SQL server. It's not so much of an issue when you're dealing with Azure, but SQL server on Linux isn't ready for prime time yet IMO.
  - meesterdude 7y ago
    I know a few .NET stacks being served up on linux servers (no MS DB, obviously)
    - nightski 7y ago
      Why is it obvious no MS DB? SQL Server runs on Linux.
      - ska 7y ago
        > SQL Server runs on Linux. -ish, from what I've heard of colleagues struggling with it.
        manigandham 7y ago
        The core product runs the exactly same (thanks to the MSSQL PAL: platform abstraction layer). Advanced features like the SQL agent and SSIS/SSAS/SSRS came later but the latest edition has pretty much reached parity across Windows and Linux.
- sleepydog 7y ago
  I work in GCP support. I think you would be surprised. Of course Linux is more common, but we still support a lot of customers who use Windows Server, SQL Server, and .NET for production.
- wayneftw 7y ago
  > since nobody actually runs Windows Server on the Cloud anyway. And how did you actually come to that conclusion?
- xeromal 7y ago
  I'd say most uses of Windows Server would be to host SQL Server which is a hard stop for many enterprise firms.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  Not even close to true. The last project I worked on had a Windows Domain entirely hosted in AWS with Windows server instances including DCs, CAs, SQL servers, etc. >Three years ago, Mark Russinovich, CTO ofAzure, Microsoft's cloud program, said, "One in four [Azure] instances are Linux." Then, in 2017, it was 40 percent Azure virtual machines (VM) were Linux. Today, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group, said in an interview, "it's about half now, but it varies on the day because a lot of these workloads are elastic, but sometimes slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux." Microsoft later clarified, "about half Azure VMs are Linux." https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-now-dominates-azure/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-now-dominates-azure/
shyneeup 7y ago
Now I am curious, who runs production customer facing apps on Azure? I'm assuming many people do given that Azure is second after AWS in market share or is that really just mostly corporate IT servers?
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  When folks say Azure is just behind AWS what does that mean? I don't see nearly that many Azure large scale workloads or is something else counting as Azure I'm not aware of?
  - shyneeup 7y ago
    well just behind is very generous considering Azure's market share is around 12% and AWS is like 50% https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/02/amazon-owns-nearly-half-of-the-public-cloud-infrastructure-market-worth-over-32-billion-report/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/02/amazon-...
  - manojlds 7y ago
    It used to count Office 365 as well, not sure if that's changed.
- neurobashing 7y ago
  we recently adopted a 'far in the upper right hand quadrant' SaaS platform, and learned _after_ we signed that they were 99%+ Azure. And many of the other platforms we auditioned were on Azure as well. I think it's pretty common in the enterprise.
- belltaco 7y ago
  Usually all the big commerce and e-commerce players. They don't want their data flowing through Amazon because of conflict of interest.
- NedIsakoff 7y ago
  I work for $COMPANY, we just became a Microsoft Partner. Our CTO has deemed that we move all products from AWS to Azure, with a 2 year time frame.
belltaco 7y ago
The signal to noise ratio of the article is very low.
- mcguire 7y ago
  See the linked https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/05/microsoft_licensing_windows_clouds/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/05/microsoft_licensing... Register article.
Dayshine 7y ago
All Windows servers on Azure already have to have "Software assurance". The license T&C for the last few years have been fairly clear you need to pay for software assurance to cloud host. Are they not simply closing the loophole where direct customers are paying more?
- Spooky23 7y ago
  The "loophole" was that you could license a specific host in AWS or GCP and use the "outsourcing" provision to use existing perpetual licenses on that host. My understanding is that now you cannot do that with specific providers. But, if "Spooky23 Outsourcing Services, LLC" rents you a server, you can, but you cannot do it on AWS. I don't think that AWS/GCP guarantee that you are on a specific host for any period of time, and I think that in many scenarios, you cannot move Windows Server workloads more than once in any 30-day period. I think Microsoft's position is that customers on these platforms are likely breaking that rule. That said, those same rules apply to ESX and HyperV, and Microsoft doesn't blacklist vMotion because it can violate an agreement. Many people see these sorts of actions as a part of a pattern where Microsoft is leveraging the existing license rights to drive Azure. That's how they are providing Windows Server 2008 extended security updates as well.
Traster 7y ago
Well this article doesn't seem very good. Not least because the author seems perfectly willing to not actually explain the detail, and then jump to conclusions. Having read the actual detailed article what seems to be happening is that some customers buy "on-premises licenses" without mobility rights, and MSFT used to let them use those licenses on outsourced hardware. But people were using those licenses to just put their deployments on general cloud services- which is not what the license was intended for. The license was intended for fixed, outsourced bare metal hardware. Basically, MSFT is just catching up to the fact cloud services exist and you're going to need a specific license if you want to run the software on the cloud. Now, apparently this author finds this surprising, but given that the license he's complaining about is an "on premises" license it sounds more like MSFT were being generous by letting customers use the licenses on outsourced hardware, and never intended it to be carte blanche for running your "on premises" license in the cloud - which is very obviously not on your premises. What it sounds like is happening at the moment is Amazon is running a shit tonne of MSFT software without any MSFT licenses. Which sounds pretty cheeky to me.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold licenses that could be used this way, customers used them this way, and now Microsoft wants to double-dip asking their customers to pay twice just to actually use their already owned licenses. > What it sounds like is happening at the moment is Amazon is running a shit tonne of MSFT software without any MSFT licenses. Which sounds pretty cheeky to me. That's not what is happening. People are buying Windows Server licenses and running them on compute that they rent from AWS. Until this change, that was completely inside the terms of Windows Server licenses (if for no other reason that they've been pushing hypervisor-based Windows Server virtualization for almost ten years).
  - belltaco 7y ago
drummyfish 7y ago
> the bad old days of Microsoft being an anti-competitive bully are dead and buried. Wait, there are people who genuinely believe this?
- imglorp 7y ago
  Plenty of us still have CALS-mares. The Man will use license terms to control what you deploy and where and how - it's more than just a purchase of a Thing that you can use because it comes with FUTURE terms that can change, forever. See also weekend thread on Cisco locking users out of their own hardware. This is why there is Free software -- free as in choice, not free as in beer -- so users don't get locked in or forced into something other than a simple purchase.
  - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
    At least Microsoft isn’t pulling an Oracle... yet.
- magashna 7y ago
  Well now it seems like they're much more strategic and Machiavellian
- arnvald 7y ago
  You'd be surprised. When I interview developers in their early 20s, they say Microsoft is great because they created Typescript and VS Code, and now they'll make web devs' lives easier by embracing Chromium. I once interviewed at a young fintech company that proudly said they're Microsoft-first company (ie they use .net stack, azure, outlook and ms teams etc)
- holtalanm 7y ago
  I genuinely believe that Microsoft is at least making an effort to not be the 'Microsoft of old'. Also, them open-sourcing a lot of their tools seems to back that effort up: VSCode TypeScript .NET Core Powershell Core Just to name a few.
  - 7y ago
ptah 7y ago
are they trying to get more people to use linux? because that's how you get more people to use linux
- bogwog 7y ago
  I don't understand why anyone would even want to use Windows. You're taking on a huge risk for very little to no benefit. It's not like there's a shortage of engineers familiar with Linux in the world.
  - abarringer 7y ago
    Just because you run windows doesn't mean you like it. SQL Server, vendor app requirements etc. A windowless world is about as likely as a paperless bathroom and for the same reasons. Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing?
    - bogwog 7y ago
      > Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing? The many business risks of being 100% tied down to a single provider (Microsoft). Licensing is one, but also what would happen if Microsoft decided to kill off a service that your product depends on? You'd have to invest in finding an alternative and rewriting your software. Or what if Microsoft sells that service to another company which is actually directly competing with you, and then decides to stop providing third party access, or looks at your usage metrics/data to gain a competitive advantage over you. Or maybe Microsoft gets an incompetent CEO which drives the company to bankruptcy, and Windows and all their services you depend on are sold to hundreds of different companies which you now need to deal with. Building your software on Linux or BSD means you don't have to worry about any of that since you own everything. It's like you're getting vertical integration for free. It's a no-brainer.
      - abarringer 7y ago
        Both replies to me earlier comment mentioned vendor lock in. Is there any greater vendor lock-in then integrating AWS thousand and one services? Is it really riskier to trust MS to not kill a product then Google? Is the answer really to write everything yourself from the OS up? I don't disagree that MS could do any of what you mentioned but I'm not sure AWS/GCP etc wouldn't be as likely to as well.
killStea1 7y ago
i'm a lurker. i don't normally comment on HN but this article is such low quality. i can't believe such garbage article get posted on HN. i'll never use The Duckbill Group or recommend to anyone based on this garbage click bait article.
philliphaydon 7y ago
Do many people even use byo license on aws to begin with?
ineedasername 7y ago
In a situation like this, if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin in the long term, there's about two options: Change your cloud provider (to Azure) or change your platform (away from windows). It seems MS is betting there will be, on net, more people who take it on the chin &/or switch to Azure. But even if they're right, there will still be some loss of marketshare for those staying with AWS & ditching Windows. This seems like a Bad Thing in the long term, no matter the specifics of other short term gains.
- pas 7y ago
  Or... people will just pay a bit more to MS and stay on AWS. It's not like AWS and Windows are for the cost conscious.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    That's why I put in the beginning "if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin" caveat. Some will be willing to do so, and for good reason if they have workloads that really need windows and specific features of AWS. My point is simply that some people will abandon Windows, and I could be wrong but even if they have some revenue gain in the near term, losing a bit of market share is bad in the long term.
    - pas 7y ago
      They already have a market share too big to effectively handle/serve. MS will probably transform into a bit like Apple for enterprises.
oxfordmale 7y ago
The real question is why companies are still running Windows Servers in the cloud. It is already 50% more expensive to run Windows Server on AWS compared to a Linux based OS, so I can really only justify running Windows Server for legacy applications that are too difficult to migrate. Actually I am happy with this price increase, it will give me some leverage to migrate the remaining applications away from Windows.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  I admit my experience is mostly with JS deployed on Linux, but ASP.NET seems like a good framework with awesome tooling. Also using the same language on the frontend and backend is very useful and I consider C# the best option for Windows frontend work. Not that I'm saying NodeJS backend with Website/Electron frontend is bad, but ASP.NET backend with WPF frontend seems great as well, just with more enterprise-oriented trade-offs, support cycles longer than one year but no cross-platform support (yes, ASP.NET core is a thing now, but that's a very recent development). And compared to the cost of engineers I don't think many companies are that worried about spending 50% more on infrastructure.
  - oxfordmale 7y ago
    Legacy ASP.NET web pages might be harder to migrate, however, newer web sites can also be implemented using ASP.NET Core MVC. It seems other departments in Microsoft do understand that their code base needs to be able to run on a Linux OS, otherwise they are at risk of losing market share. Even SQL Server can run on Linux now.
    - mr_overalls 7y ago
      > SQL Server Well, it certainly "runs" on Linux, but there are many limitations and bugs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-release-notes?view=sql-server-2017#Unsupported https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-release-notes?view=sql-server-2017#known-issues https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-... And this is typical when porting a flagship application to its non-original OS. I've seen similar issues with Oracle on Windows.
deleted 7y ago
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Ruxbin1986 7y ago
I wonder, if Microsoft did decided to increase the costs of it's product and services what's the best way to that? To me, that's all that's happening here. And the licenses purchase buy customer in the past weren't intended for Cloud Workloads. Sure, it didn't outline that you CANT use on AWS, GCP, etc. but that wasn't the intent.
jbigelow76 7y ago
The whole "won't somebody think of the poor advocates" angle seems pretty thin to me, tossed in to gin up a little unearned outrage. Did all these advocates all take big pay cuts to leave Amazon, Oracle, Salesforce, etc... to go and preach the gospel of Azure? I doubt it.
scarface74 7y ago
I love that Microsoft is doing this. I was an exclusive Microsoft developer for almost 20 years until I started doing cloud deployments to AWS 2 years ago. Before then, server costs were someone else's problem. Now I’m doing a combination of .Net Core, Python, and JS/Node. I realized that everything gets worse when you add Windows to any cloud solution - licensing costs, resource requirements, (I can do at lot with a very small Linux instance, Windows not so much), performance, startup times, easy scripting and automation, etc. It gives me more of a reason to tell companies to move as far away from Windows on the server as possible. I still develop on Windows,C#/.Net Core is my favorite language, don’t know much about Linux, and all of my “Linux deployments” are serverless with Docker/Fargate or Lambda. I don’t have to worry about “server administration”, the one thing that kept me on Windows. We use managed services.
ohthehugemanate 7y ago
Microsoft closes a loophole that let people use a cheaper, license on competitor clouds. Leading competitor complains. News at 11.
CyanLite2 7y ago
TLDR: Azure is cheaper than AWS for Windows VMs.
cutler 7y ago
Surprised? This is the same company that not long ago was waging a mafia-style Linux patent war against open source verndors. Microsoft only got into the open source game because they had no choice. How long, I wonder, before ASP.Net Core is "optimised" for deployment on Azure even if it can be run on Linux?

186 points by sylens 7y ago

It's pretty hard to get upset about this since nobody actually runs Windows Server on the Cloud anyway. Even Azure is dominated by Linux server usage.

dbuder 7y ago
Plenty of companies use Azure and MS all the way, media/marketing people think Linux is nerdy and too hard and those nice folks from MS came by and bought them lunch last week, would be rude not to go with them...
whoisjuan 7y ago
"Nobody runs Windows Server on the Cloud" is a massive stretch. It may not be a leader but it's definitely used https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/operating-systems/windows-server-market-share https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/operating-systems/wind... Also if your stack is .NET you definitely need Windows Server. Even Amazon has some things built on .NET/Windows Server (woot.com)
- grezql 7y ago
  .net core, which the flagship of the future, is cross platform. I am running it in ubuntu production environment for an App i made. Very stable.
  - celticmusic 7y ago
    Over time what you're implying here is true, but in the short term there are a lot of people stuck on .net Framework and it's difficult to get off of it. It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish. But lots of companies are foolish.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      “It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish.” If it only were that easy to move to Core. I thought I could sneak that transition into a few projects but there are a ton of little obstacles that make such an effort lots of work.
      - celticmusic 7y ago
        yep, which is why they should be working on it now. The fact that you can target .net standard with framework means TODAY you can sequester your framework specific things behind DLL's and put everything else on .net core officially. I honestly think there's going to be a huge consulting/freelance market for it soon. I wasn't trying to imply that it's easy, just that everyone should be planning out how to do it so they can do it slowly over the next few years rather than all at once in panic mode. Props to MS for ensuring the two can live side by side the way they have. It makes the transition a LOT easier if you're smart enough to start it early and let it have a long tail. I've personally done this a few times already.
        Ididntdothis 7y ago
        The other option is to stick to what works and see if MS change strategy again as they seem to be doing very few years.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        MS has not changed strategies since starting .net core. It's on v3, going on v4. If you're still unsure what the future is going to be, you've missed the boat.
        Ididntdothis 7y ago
        I guess that’s true. The .NET framework strategy is pretty consistent. I guess I am still traumatized by the mess they have created with their desktop UI toolkits.
  - davedx 7y ago
    Yes and no. I work on some ASP .NET applications and on a big .net core project. The .net core project indeed runs fine on Linux in AWS. It's a great success story for us. The ASP .NET projects I maintain have a budget that doesn't easily allow us to just migrate them to .net core. There are some hairy legacy libs and code in there that would also prove challenging to resolve too.
    - pathartl 7y ago
      Yeah, this right here. I work on a MVC 5 app that uses some pretty large legacy libraries that's going to be hard to move from. Some of it is legacy stuff that may or may not have a .NET Core or .NET Standard equivalent. Others like Entity Framework have a Core equivalent that changes some paradigms to be a bit more modern, but ultimately creates a situation where it's not a drop in replacement. There's also the question of SQL server. It's not so much of an issue when you're dealing with Azure, but SQL server on Linux isn't ready for prime time yet IMO.
- meesterdude 7y ago
  I know a few .NET stacks being served up on linux servers (no MS DB, obviously)
  - nightski 7y ago
    Why is it obvious no MS DB? SQL Server runs on Linux.
    - ska 7y ago
      > SQL Server runs on Linux. -ish, from what I've heard of colleagues struggling with it.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        The core product runs the exactly same (thanks to the MSSQL PAL: platform abstraction layer). Advanced features like the SQL agent and SSIS/SSAS/SSRS came later but the latest edition has pretty much reached parity across Windows and Linux.
sleepydog 7y ago
I work in GCP support. I think you would be surprised. Of course Linux is more common, but we still support a lot of customers who use Windows Server, SQL Server, and .NET for production.
wayneftw 7y ago
> since nobody actually runs Windows Server on the Cloud anyway. And how did you actually come to that conclusion?
xeromal 7y ago
I'd say most uses of Windows Server would be to host SQL Server which is a hard stop for many enterprise firms.
okmokmz 7y ago
Not even close to true. The last project I worked on had a Windows Domain entirely hosted in AWS with Windows server instances including DCs, CAs, SQL servers, etc. >Three years ago, Mark Russinovich, CTO ofAzure, Microsoft's cloud program, said, "One in four [Azure] instances are Linux." Then, in 2017, it was 40 percent Azure virtual machines (VM) were Linux. Today, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group, said in an interview, "it's about half now, but it varies on the day because a lot of these workloads are elastic, but sometimes slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux." Microsoft later clarified, "about half Azure VMs are Linux." https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-now-dominates-azure/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-now-dominates-azure/

shyneeup 7y ago

Now I am curious, who runs production customer facing apps on Azure? I'm assuming many people do given that Azure is second after AWS in market share or is that really just mostly corporate IT servers?

privateSFacct 7y ago
When folks say Azure is just behind AWS what does that mean? I don't see nearly that many Azure large scale workloads or is something else counting as Azure I'm not aware of?
- shyneeup 7y ago
  well just behind is very generous considering Azure's market share is around 12% and AWS is like 50% https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/02/amazon-owns-nearly-half-of-the-public-cloud-infrastructure-market-worth-over-32-billion-report/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/02/amazon-...
- manojlds 7y ago
  It used to count Office 365 as well, not sure if that's changed.
neurobashing 7y ago
we recently adopted a 'far in the upper right hand quadrant' SaaS platform, and learned _after_ we signed that they were 99%+ Azure. And many of the other platforms we auditioned were on Azure as well. I think it's pretty common in the enterprise.
belltaco 7y ago
Usually all the big commerce and e-commerce players. They don't want their data flowing through Amazon because of conflict of interest.
NedIsakoff 7y ago
I work for $COMPANY, we just became a Microsoft Partner. Our CTO has deemed that we move all products from AWS to Azure, with a 2 year time frame.

belltaco 7y ago

The signal to noise ratio of the article is very low.

mcguire 7y ago
See the linked https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/05/microsoft_licensing_windows_clouds/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/05/microsoft_licensing... Register article.

Dayshine 7y ago

All Windows servers on Azure already have to have "Software assurance". The license T&C for the last few years have been fairly clear you need to pay for software assurance to cloud host. Are they not simply closing the loophole where direct customers are paying more?

Spooky23 7y ago
The "loophole" was that you could license a specific host in AWS or GCP and use the "outsourcing" provision to use existing perpetual licenses on that host. My understanding is that now you cannot do that with specific providers. But, if "Spooky23 Outsourcing Services, LLC" rents you a server, you can, but you cannot do it on AWS. I don't think that AWS/GCP guarantee that you are on a specific host for any period of time, and I think that in many scenarios, you cannot move Windows Server workloads more than once in any 30-day period. I think Microsoft's position is that customers on these platforms are likely breaking that rule. That said, those same rules apply to ESX and HyperV, and Microsoft doesn't blacklist vMotion because it can violate an agreement. Many people see these sorts of actions as a part of a pattern where Microsoft is leveraging the existing license rights to drive Azure. That's how they are providing Windows Server 2008 extended security updates as well.

Traster 7y ago

Well this article doesn't seem very good. Not least because the author seems perfectly willing to not actually explain the detail, and then jump to conclusions. Having read the actual detailed article what seems to be happening is that some customers buy "on-premises licenses" without mobility rights, and MSFT used to let them use those licenses on outsourced hardware. But people were using those licenses to just put their deployments on general cloud services- which is not what the license was intended for. The license was intended for fixed, outsourced bare metal hardware. Basically, MSFT is just catching up to the fact cloud services exist and you're going to need a specific license if you want to run the software on the cloud. Now, apparently this author finds this surprising, but given that the license he's complaining about is an "on premises" license it sounds more like MSFT were being generous by letting customers use the licenses on outsourced hardware, and never intended it to be carte blanche for running your "on premises" license in the cloud - which is very obviously not on your premises. What it sounds like is happening at the moment is Amazon is running a shit tonne of MSFT software without any MSFT licenses. Which sounds pretty cheeky to me.

Someone1234 7y ago
You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold licenses that could be used this way, customers used them this way, and now Microsoft wants to double-dip asking their customers to pay twice just to actually use their already owned licenses. > What it sounds like is happening at the moment is Amazon is running a shit tonne of MSFT software without any MSFT licenses. Which sounds pretty cheeky to me. That's not what is happening. People are buying Windows Server licenses and running them on compute that they rent from AWS. Until this change, that was completely inside the terms of Windows Server licenses (if for no other reason that they've been pushing hypervisor-based Windows Server virtualization for almost ten years).
- belltaco 7y ago

drummyfish 7y ago

> the bad old days of Microsoft being an anti-competitive bully are dead and buried. Wait, there are people who genuinely believe this?

imglorp 7y ago
Plenty of us still have CALS-mares. The Man will use license terms to control what you deploy and where and how - it's more than just a purchase of a Thing that you can use because it comes with FUTURE terms that can change, forever. See also weekend thread on Cisco locking users out of their own hardware. This is why there is Free software -- free as in choice, not free as in beer -- so users don't get locked in or forced into something other than a simple purchase.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  At least Microsoft isn’t pulling an Oracle... yet.
magashna 7y ago
Well now it seems like they're much more strategic and Machiavellian
arnvald 7y ago
You'd be surprised. When I interview developers in their early 20s, they say Microsoft is great because they created Typescript and VS Code, and now they'll make web devs' lives easier by embracing Chromium. I once interviewed at a young fintech company that proudly said they're Microsoft-first company (ie they use .net stack, azure, outlook and ms teams etc)
holtalanm 7y ago
I genuinely believe that Microsoft is at least making an effort to not be the 'Microsoft of old'. Also, them open-sourcing a lot of their tools seems to back that effort up: VSCode TypeScript .NET Core Powershell Core Just to name a few.
- 7y ago

ptah 7y ago

are they trying to get more people to use linux? because that's how you get more people to use linux

bogwog 7y ago
I don't understand why anyone would even want to use Windows. You're taking on a huge risk for very little to no benefit. It's not like there's a shortage of engineers familiar with Linux in the world.
- abarringer 7y ago
  Just because you run windows doesn't mean you like it. SQL Server, vendor app requirements etc. A windowless world is about as likely as a paperless bathroom and for the same reasons. Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing?
  - bogwog 7y ago
    > Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing? The many business risks of being 100% tied down to a single provider (Microsoft). Licensing is one, but also what would happen if Microsoft decided to kill off a service that your product depends on? You'd have to invest in finding an alternative and rewriting your software. Or what if Microsoft sells that service to another company which is actually directly competing with you, and then decides to stop providing third party access, or looks at your usage metrics/data to gain a competitive advantage over you. Or maybe Microsoft gets an incompetent CEO which drives the company to bankruptcy, and Windows and all their services you depend on are sold to hundreds of different companies which you now need to deal with. Building your software on Linux or BSD means you don't have to worry about any of that since you own everything. It's like you're getting vertical integration for free. It's a no-brainer.
    - abarringer 7y ago
      Both replies to me earlier comment mentioned vendor lock in. Is there any greater vendor lock-in then integrating AWS thousand and one services? Is it really riskier to trust MS to not kill a product then Google? Is the answer really to write everything yourself from the OS up? I don't disagree that MS could do any of what you mentioned but I'm not sure AWS/GCP etc wouldn't be as likely to as well.

killStea1 7y ago

i'm a lurker. i don't normally comment on HN but this article is such low quality. i can't believe such garbage article get posted on HN. i'll never use The Duckbill Group or recommend to anyone based on this garbage click bait article.

philliphaydon 7y ago

Do many people even use byo license on aws to begin with?

ineedasername 7y ago

In a situation like this, if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin in the long term, there's about two options: Change your cloud provider (to Azure) or change your platform (away from windows). It seems MS is betting there will be, on net, more people who take it on the chin &/or switch to Azure. But even if they're right, there will still be some loss of marketshare for those staying with AWS & ditching Windows. This seems like a Bad Thing in the long term, no matter the specifics of other short term gains.

pas 7y ago
Or... people will just pay a bit more to MS and stay on AWS. It's not like AWS and Windows are for the cost conscious.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  That's why I put in the beginning "if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin" caveat. Some will be willing to do so, and for good reason if they have workloads that really need windows and specific features of AWS. My point is simply that some people will abandon Windows, and I could be wrong but even if they have some revenue gain in the near term, losing a bit of market share is bad in the long term.
  - pas 7y ago
    They already have a market share too big to effectively handle/serve. MS will probably transform into a bit like Apple for enterprises.

oxfordmale 7y ago

The real question is why companies are still running Windows Servers in the cloud. It is already 50% more expensive to run Windows Server on AWS compared to a Linux based OS, so I can really only justify running Windows Server for legacy applications that are too difficult to migrate. Actually I am happy with this price increase, it will give me some leverage to migrate the remaining applications away from Windows.

wongarsu 7y ago
I admit my experience is mostly with JS deployed on Linux, but ASP.NET seems like a good framework with awesome tooling. Also using the same language on the frontend and backend is very useful and I consider C# the best option for Windows frontend work. Not that I'm saying NodeJS backend with Website/Electron frontend is bad, but ASP.NET backend with WPF frontend seems great as well, just with more enterprise-oriented trade-offs, support cycles longer than one year but no cross-platform support (yes, ASP.NET core is a thing now, but that's a very recent development). And compared to the cost of engineers I don't think many companies are that worried about spending 50% more on infrastructure.
- oxfordmale 7y ago
  Legacy ASP.NET web pages might be harder to migrate, however, newer web sites can also be implemented using ASP.NET Core MVC. It seems other departments in Microsoft do understand that their code base needs to be able to run on a Linux OS, otherwise they are at risk of losing market share. Even SQL Server can run on Linux now.
  - mr_overalls 7y ago
    > SQL Server Well, it certainly "runs" on Linux, but there are many limitations and bugs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-release-notes?view=sql-server-2017#Unsupported https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-release-notes?view=sql-server-2017#known-issues https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-... And this is typical when porting a flagship application to its non-original OS. I've seen similar issues with Oracle on Windows.

deleted 7y ago

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Ruxbin1986 7y ago

I wonder, if Microsoft did decided to increase the costs of it's product and services what's the best way to that? To me, that's all that's happening here. And the licenses purchase buy customer in the past weren't intended for Cloud Workloads. Sure, it didn't outline that you CANT use on AWS, GCP, etc. but that wasn't the intent.

jbigelow76 7y ago

The whole "won't somebody think of the poor advocates" angle seems pretty thin to me, tossed in to gin up a little unearned outrage. Did all these advocates all take big pay cuts to leave Amazon, Oracle, Salesforce, etc... to go and preach the gospel of Azure? I doubt it.

scarface74 7y ago

I love that Microsoft is doing this. I was an exclusive Microsoft developer for almost 20 years until I started doing cloud deployments to AWS 2 years ago. Before then, server costs were someone else's problem. Now I’m doing a combination of .Net Core, Python, and JS/Node. I realized that everything gets worse when you add Windows to any cloud solution - licensing costs, resource requirements, (I can do at lot with a very small Linux instance, Windows not so much), performance, startup times, easy scripting and automation, etc. It gives me more of a reason to tell companies to move as far away from Windows on the server as possible. I still develop on Windows,C#/.Net Core is my favorite language, don’t know much about Linux, and all of my “Linux deployments” are serverless with Docker/Fargate or Lambda. I don’t have to worry about “server administration”, the one thing that kept me on Windows. We use managed services.

ohthehugemanate 7y ago

Microsoft closes a loophole that let people use a cheaper, license on competitor clouds. Leading competitor complains. News at 11.

CyanLite2 7y ago

TLDR: Azure is cheaper than AWS for Windows VMs.

cutler 7y ago

Surprised? This is the same company that not long ago was waging a mafia-style Linux patent war against open source verndors. Microsoft only got into the open source game because they had no choice. How long, I wonder, before ASP.Net Core is "optimised" for deployment on Azure even if it can be run on Linux?