17 ms·

Microsoft launches Windows Azure, its "cloud OS"

39 points by bdfh42 18y ago

dmose 18y ago
Whitepaper on it: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4fa8-a9f9-ec60a32954bc/Azure_Services_Platform.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4...
- sriramk 18y ago
  [disclaimer - I work for the Windows Azure team]. The root website is www.azure.com - that should link to all the relevant docs, bits, sites. We're turning on all the switches as I write this so you may see a few 404s before noon PST.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - DenisM 18y ago
    A bit of feedback: I would be hesitant to start using this because there is no way to anticipate the pricing scheme whenever it shows up. Last thing I want is to commit to a platform andthen find out it's cost-prohibitve. Also, google promises to keep certain level of usage free which makes me more likely to try because I know I won't get suddenly hosed with high prices.
    - bprater 18y ago
      Agreed, it's troubling that Microsoft isn't giving us any indication of what pricing may be.
    - dmix 18y ago
      I've heard this come up many times today. I'm curious if everyone questioned the financial motives of Google App Engine when it first came out. Then again the target market for Azure seems to be enterprise IT depts, who tend to be involved with proprietary technology, and not start-up developers looking for a cheap and efficient host.
      - DenisM 18y ago
        1. Yes, I did question it back then too. Google has since rectified their stance and published their pricing scheme. The paid service is not operational yet but it's a neccesary piece of inforation to plan the projects ahead. I have started learning pyhon based on that information (python is required for google's services) but did not commit the project itself yet because the ship date is still up in the air. 2. This is not true, they target several markets and among them both corporate develoers and web developers: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/corpdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/corpdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/webdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/webdev.mspx
    - TweedHeads 18y ago
      The first kick is free you know
  - TweedHeads 18y ago
    I knew astroturfing was around the corner. We got invaded, like digg, so long to an unbiased HN.
    - arockwell 18y ago
      It is not astroturfing if you say what company your from.
josefresco 18y ago
One question that comes to mind: How does this effect the market for private, dedicated (managed) servers? Or rather the platform providers for today's online apps?
andr 18y ago
Definitely interesting! From what I see at first glance, there's a queue/MQ-like service, a scalable database (is it SQL or key/value?), a workflow service, and the whole thing works whether you want to use .NET or not.
- sriramk 18y ago
  You can find more docs on Windows Azure tables (distinct from the blobs service which you missed :-) ) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131257 http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131257 . Sorry about the doc link. I'm sure there's a web version somewhere which I can't find right now thanks to the flaky connection I'm on
dcurtis 18y ago
Microsoft has destroyed their brand so completely that I don't even consider this a viable product. I don't trust Microsoft.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  So true. I won't even buy a computer if it comes pre-installed with Vista. Linux and/or Mac please.
- dejb 18y ago
  When did you actually trust Microsoft with online computing? Before Vista? I don't see a huge relationship between Vista and their online efforts. Sounds like a bit of MS bashing propaganda from somebody who has never liked or trusted them.
  - axod 18y ago
    Microsoft has never "gotten" the internet. They still don't. I don't see any reason to suppose they have suddenly "gotten" it here.
    - DenisM 18y ago
      How about discussing the proposition on its merits, rather than pedigree? It's not like there are ten new cloud platform come in every day and we have to make a snap decision. We can, in fact, afford to look at the offer itself.
      - axod 18y ago
        Sorry, but if I want to buy a laptop, I wouldn't buy one from Pepsi. Similarly, if I want something Internet related, I wouldn't get it from Microsoft. I just don't see any evidence they understand it. They have done an absolutely awful job in the last 10+ years.
        deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
mkn 18y ago
Am I wrong in wondering if cloud computing might do for computing what hedge funds and CDSs did for finances? By this I mean that in both cases we're talking about attaining the last iota of efficiency by consolidating a resource in the hands of a few. What happens when the MS cloud goes down? (I know. Impossible.) We've seen the stories about people who have lost access to their gmail accounts. What if a large portion of the economy has their applications tied up in the cloud and there's an interruption in service. Or a natural disaster. Analogously, should these cloud providers be required by law to maintain a (geographically distributed) computing reserve? A second (or third, even) clone of the current cloud? I understand that the communication between the cloud and the world is distributed, but the actual cloud seems to be as distributed as a rock.
- yters 18y ago
  I like the google gears approach, where you can go offline with the data if necessary. Still not ideal, though.
- bstadil 18y ago
  Amazon currently have 3 separate data centers and additional S3 storage in Europe. This trend will continue as SLAs become more of a selling point for all Cloud purveyors. Second why do people think that your own data center will be better? It is like putting your money under the bed rather than in the bank. So people do that but not a good idea. Lastly we will see a common API emerge that will allow us to move with little impertinent. The emergence of Eucalyptus is an early indication of this.
  - mkn 18y ago
    Your reply seems to be a spot-on agreement with my post, except that you don't realize it. Your choice of analogy is particularly amusing in that, right now, if you'd had your money under your mattress, you'd be better off than if you'd invested in one of these highly-leveraged and over-exposed financial vehicles that I'd mentioned. Mattressing one's money may have been the best idea of them all for a large class of investors. That aside, the proper way to make the analogy you're making is not to compare investing in a CDS against putting money in or under your mattress, but rather to compare it with putting it in a certificate of deposit in your locally-owned bank or loaning it to a locally-owned business. Either of these would very likely have less return and a higher risk for you. However, you would be less susceptible to a global default cascade like the one that is happening now. The reason that ...your own data center [would] be better... isn't that it's less likely to go down, but rather that, if everybody has their own data center, the chances of a global blackout go down drastically. This is precisely the analogue I was pointing out. If banks had stayed non-optimum and local, then (arguably) we would not be facing a (potential) global economic meltdown. You may argue (rightly) that if you pursue these localist strategies when everyone else is pursuing these more profitable consolidated strategies, which carry this systemic risk of catastrophic failure, that you'd succumb to competition from others. This is the point of asking for regulation in the market, and (possibly) the case for asking for it here. At some point, almost by definition, the cloud computing market will commoditize. When that happens, the only way to cut costs will be do do without redundancy, if that is a legally available option. The underlying problem is that people discount the cost/benefit of events that happen in the distant future, and the global catastrophes in these two systems always seems distant. Finally, one may object that if redundancy is such a good idea, then it will happen naturally and never be eroded by market forces. In this case, then, there can really be no objection to legislation on the matter, because everyone will naturally comply anyways.
bigthboy 18y ago
I'm interested to see how well the service fairs when it launches and I'm just as interested in seeing the response from those developers who are being able to test the platform. I think that this could potentially be a "step in the right direction" for Microsoft to stay relevant in a world that's changing how and where data and processing is handled. However, unlike many speculators who talk about how someday the "Cloud will completely engulf the world," I don't think that will happen anytime soon. As available as the Internet is and the number of providers grow, there still is going to be a need for localized data processing and handling to a certain extent. This is one of the places that I agree with Microsoft in saying that it needs to be "Local + Cloud." The concept of it all strikes me as something best used to enhance local applications to have access to more information, seamlessly, and dynamically, and be able to tailor that information to meet the needs of the end-user.
amvp 18y ago
Maybe I'm missing something here, because nobody is mentioning it, but isn't this a major shift for MS? Microsoft is a software company basically (other than mice and zunes and 360s), but here they are offering essentially hardware-as-a-service. If, last week, I would have gone to Dell and bought a server with a windows license (Disclaimer: I'd never do such a thing!), I'd now just pay MS to run my app on Azure . Dell, HP, IBM and whoever else make windows servers have just been cut out of the equation, right?
- grantc 18y ago
  H/w vendors are only cut out if MSFT invents a replacement for metal. Granted, utility computing in the cloud is about squeezing more utilization and value out of a given piece of h/w, so it's not without impact. You might perceive this as a change, but I'd say it's a change in the paradigm moreso than a change in MSFT. Also, people tend to overlook this but cloud isn't really about infrastructure or hosting. Sure those are the current analogs--cloud is about what happens next, and I think it's more about shifting architectural tenets so that we do what works well with cloud scale and lifecycle. When you do those things, other interesting things start to become possible (e.g., in the cloud, it's hard to have misaligned test and prod envs, not the rule like it is most everywhere else).
cmars232 18y ago
I wonder if their Python support will run "real Django"...
- grantc 18y ago
  Google can help your wonderment. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ironpython+django http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3...
nickjames 18y ago
Fuck Microsoft.
Viper 18y ago
Is there a problem this solves better and cheaper than other available solutions? If there is I can't see it. Did they even do a proper business case? I can't see startups using it for a ton of reasons. I can't see most businesses using it. They want their data in their data center. The only use I can see would be a way for MS to sell software as a service to companies that want hosted Exchange, sharepoint, etc.
jwilliams 18y ago
Is it just me or is the Azure website having a lot of problems at the moment? http://www.microsoft.com/azure/ http://www.microsoft.com/azure/ I'm getting a lot of "page not available" errors and broken image links.
anamax 18y ago
Vista only for the SDK is a problem.
TweedHeads 18y ago
Their "cloud" is already down, looks like vapor to me.

39 points by bdfh42 18y ago

dmose 18y ago

Whitepaper on it: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4fa8-a9f9-ec60a32954bc/Azure_Services_Platform.docx http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4...

sriramk 18y ago
[disclaimer - I work for the Windows Azure team]. The root website is www.azure.com - that should link to all the relevant docs, bits, sites. We're turning on all the switches as I write this so you may see a few 404s before noon PST.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- DenisM 18y ago
  A bit of feedback: I would be hesitant to start using this because there is no way to anticipate the pricing scheme whenever it shows up. Last thing I want is to commit to a platform andthen find out it's cost-prohibitve. Also, google promises to keep certain level of usage free which makes me more likely to try because I know I won't get suddenly hosed with high prices.
  - bprater 18y ago
    Agreed, it's troubling that Microsoft isn't giving us any indication of what pricing may be.
  - dmix 18y ago
    I've heard this come up many times today. I'm curious if everyone questioned the financial motives of Google App Engine when it first came out. Then again the target market for Azure seems to be enterprise IT depts, who tend to be involved with proprietary technology, and not start-up developers looking for a cheap and efficient host.
    - DenisM 18y ago
      1. Yes, I did question it back then too. Google has since rectified their stance and published their pricing scheme. The paid service is not operational yet but it's a neccesary piece of inforation to plan the projects ahead. I have started learning pyhon based on that information (python is required for google's services) but did not commit the project itself yet because the ship date is still up in the air. 2. This is not true, they target several markets and among them both corporate develoers and web developers: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/corpdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/corpdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/webdev.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/azure/webdev.mspx
  - TweedHeads 18y ago
    The first kick is free you know
- TweedHeads 18y ago
  I knew astroturfing was around the corner. We got invaded, like digg, so long to an unbiased HN.
  - arockwell 18y ago
    It is not astroturfing if you say what company your from.

josefresco 18y ago

One question that comes to mind: How does this effect the market for private, dedicated (managed) servers? Or rather the platform providers for today's online apps?

andr 18y ago

Definitely interesting! From what I see at first glance, there's a queue/MQ-like service, a scalable database (is it SQL or key/value?), a workflow service, and the whole thing works whether you want to use .NET or not.

sriramk 18y ago
You can find more docs on Windows Azure tables (distinct from the blobs service which you missed :-) ) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131257 http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131257 . Sorry about the doc link. I'm sure there's a web version somewhere which I can't find right now thanks to the flaky connection I'm on

dcurtis 18y ago

Microsoft has destroyed their brand so completely that I don't even consider this a viable product. I don't trust Microsoft.

fallentimes 18y ago
So true. I won't even buy a computer if it comes pre-installed with Vista. Linux and/or Mac please.
dejb 18y ago
When did you actually trust Microsoft with online computing? Before Vista? I don't see a huge relationship between Vista and their online efforts. Sounds like a bit of MS bashing propaganda from somebody who has never liked or trusted them.
- axod 18y ago
  Microsoft has never "gotten" the internet. They still don't. I don't see any reason to suppose they have suddenly "gotten" it here.
  - DenisM 18y ago
    How about discussing the proposition on its merits, rather than pedigree? It's not like there are ten new cloud platform come in every day and we have to make a snap decision. We can, in fact, afford to look at the offer itself.
    - axod 18y ago
      Sorry, but if I want to buy a laptop, I wouldn't buy one from Pepsi. Similarly, if I want something Internet related, I wouldn't get it from Microsoft. I just don't see any evidence they understand it. They have done an absolutely awful job in the last 10+ years.
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]

mkn 18y ago

Am I wrong in wondering if cloud computing might do for computing what hedge funds and CDSs did for finances? By this I mean that in both cases we're talking about attaining the last iota of efficiency by consolidating a resource in the hands of a few. What happens when the MS cloud goes down? (I know. Impossible.) We've seen the stories about people who have lost access to their gmail accounts. What if a large portion of the economy has their applications tied up in the cloud and there's an interruption in service. Or a natural disaster. Analogously, should these cloud providers be required by law to maintain a (geographically distributed) computing reserve? A second (or third, even) clone of the current cloud? I understand that the communication between the cloud and the world is distributed, but the actual cloud seems to be as distributed as a rock.

yters 18y ago
I like the google gears approach, where you can go offline with the data if necessary. Still not ideal, though.
bstadil 18y ago
Amazon currently have 3 separate data centers and additional S3 storage in Europe. This trend will continue as SLAs become more of a selling point for all Cloud purveyors. Second why do people think that your own data center will be better? It is like putting your money under the bed rather than in the bank. So people do that but not a good idea. Lastly we will see a common API emerge that will allow us to move with little impertinent. The emergence of Eucalyptus is an early indication of this.
- mkn 18y ago
  Your reply seems to be a spot-on agreement with my post, except that you don't realize it. Your choice of analogy is particularly amusing in that, right now, if you'd had your money under your mattress, you'd be better off than if you'd invested in one of these highly-leveraged and over-exposed financial vehicles that I'd mentioned. Mattressing one's money may have been the best idea of them all for a large class of investors. That aside, the proper way to make the analogy you're making is not to compare investing in a CDS against putting money in or under your mattress, but rather to compare it with putting it in a certificate of deposit in your locally-owned bank or loaning it to a locally-owned business. Either of these would very likely have less return and a higher risk for you. However, you would be less susceptible to a global default cascade like the one that is happening now. The reason that ...your own data center [would] be better... isn't that it's less likely to go down, but rather that, if everybody has their own data center, the chances of a global blackout go down drastically. This is precisely the analogue I was pointing out. If banks had stayed non-optimum and local, then (arguably) we would not be facing a (potential) global economic meltdown. You may argue (rightly) that if you pursue these localist strategies when everyone else is pursuing these more profitable consolidated strategies, which carry this systemic risk of catastrophic failure, that you'd succumb to competition from others. This is the point of asking for regulation in the market, and (possibly) the case for asking for it here. At some point, almost by definition, the cloud computing market will commoditize. When that happens, the only way to cut costs will be do do without redundancy, if that is a legally available option. The underlying problem is that people discount the cost/benefit of events that happen in the distant future, and the global catastrophes in these two systems always seems distant. Finally, one may object that if redundancy is such a good idea, then it will happen naturally and never be eroded by market forces. In this case, then, there can really be no objection to legislation on the matter, because everyone will naturally comply anyways.

bigthboy 18y ago

I'm interested to see how well the service fairs when it launches and I'm just as interested in seeing the response from those developers who are being able to test the platform. I think that this could potentially be a "step in the right direction" for Microsoft to stay relevant in a world that's changing how and where data and processing is handled. However, unlike many speculators who talk about how someday the "Cloud will completely engulf the world," I don't think that will happen anytime soon. As available as the Internet is and the number of providers grow, there still is going to be a need for localized data processing and handling to a certain extent. This is one of the places that I agree with Microsoft in saying that it needs to be "Local + Cloud." The concept of it all strikes me as something best used to enhance local applications to have access to more information, seamlessly, and dynamically, and be able to tailor that information to meet the needs of the end-user.

amvp 18y ago

Maybe I'm missing something here, because nobody is mentioning it, but isn't this a major shift for MS? Microsoft is a software company basically (other than mice and zunes and 360s), but here they are offering essentially hardware-as-a-service. If, last week, I would have gone to Dell and bought a server with a windows license (Disclaimer: I'd never do such a thing!), I'd now just pay MS to run my app on Azure . Dell, HP, IBM and whoever else make windows servers have just been cut out of the equation, right?

grantc 18y ago
H/w vendors are only cut out if MSFT invents a replacement for metal. Granted, utility computing in the cloud is about squeezing more utilization and value out of a given piece of h/w, so it's not without impact. You might perceive this as a change, but I'd say it's a change in the paradigm moreso than a change in MSFT. Also, people tend to overlook this but cloud isn't really about infrastructure or hosting. Sure those are the current analogs--cloud is about what happens next, and I think it's more about shifting architectural tenets so that we do what works well with cloud scale and lifecycle. When you do those things, other interesting things start to become possible (e.g., in the cloud, it's hard to have misaligned test and prod envs, not the rule like it is most everywhere else).

cmars232 18y ago

I wonder if their Python support will run "real Django"...

grantc 18y ago
Google can help your wonderment. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ironpython+django http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3...

nickjames 18y ago

Fuck Microsoft.

Viper 18y ago

Is there a problem this solves better and cheaper than other available solutions? If there is I can't see it. Did they even do a proper business case? I can't see startups using it for a ton of reasons. I can't see most businesses using it. They want their data in their data center. The only use I can see would be a way for MS to sell software as a service to companies that want hosted Exchange, sharepoint, etc.

jwilliams 18y ago

Is it just me or is the Azure website having a lot of problems at the moment? http://www.microsoft.com/azure/ http://www.microsoft.com/azure/ I'm getting a lot of "page not available" errors and broken image links.

anamax 18y ago

Vista only for the SDK is a problem.

TweedHeads 18y ago

Their "cloud" is already down, looks like vapor to me.