4 ms·

Who here on HN is running any portion of their startup or established Internet business on Azure?

eli 14y ago
I'm hosting some (really) non-critical stuff on a Ubuntu image on it. It seems fine. The manager interface is actually pretty good IMHO, but Linode is really cheap and running Linux on Azure is (I think) still a "beta" feature. I get the hours free though BizSpark. I was thinking of setting it up as a slave/mirror of our main sites for use as a fallover backup. It's been pretty reliable but I haven't done any benchmarks or really tested it in any way. If I had need or inclination to use the Microsoft stack, though, it would definitely be a serious contender.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - joahua 14y ago
    Sounds like it was just because it's free. (BizSpark)
cinquemb 14y ago
Please everyone, not all at once.
- Red_Curry 14y ago
  I like how HN is so blatantly anti-Microsoft, but Reddit is overly Microsoft supportive. Which hipsters do I believe in?!
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    I don't think it matters. If Azure is challenging AWS, Azure is challenging AWS. Who the buyers are is irrelevant; HNer dollars don't double when you deposit them in your bank.
  - cinquemb 14y ago
    I make a quip, and all of a sudden it's something to believe in? Humor me more :D
  - thejosh 14y ago
    It depends what subreddit you go onto, HN is pretty small compared to the reddit hivemind.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
niggler 14y ago
I played around with Azure and Heroku for node.js hosting and found that Azure wasn't as painful to setup and didn't trip up as often as Heroku (though my statement should be read as more of a criticism of Heroku than an endorsement of Azure)
gdc 14y ago
I run several services on it. .net/C# compute services. No VMs. No complaints.
bane 14y ago
different question: if you aren't why not? Amazon hasn't exactly been the picture of reliability and Heroku has had some important unanswered questions raised about its dispatch system.
MichaelGG 14y ago
Working on a project right now that will deploy on Azure Platform (not VMs). It's pretty nice to be able offload the OS to a third party and just deploy your app bits, knowing they're going to take care of OS, patching, and in general, server management tasks. On the VM side, they're still catching up, I think. For instance, you can't get multiple IPs routing to a single VM, so if you have multiple SSL sites, you'll need multiple servers in general. (SNI isn't available on IE for XP which is a deal breaker for many people.) But that's probably a reflection more of the mindset of people wanting dedicated servers and thinking "cloud VM" is the same thing, instead of people trying to build distributed applications.
vyrotek 14y ago
I've worked with/for 3 companies all built completely on Azure. I was hired by 2 of the 3 companies to help them switch to Azure. The third is my own startup which has been on Azure since Microsoft launched it. It really is a fantastic platform.
jaynate 14y ago
non-production
dewiz 14y ago
building a new service on Azure here, started 3 monts ago, switching completely from LAMP to .NET. I love working with VS and I'm getting to know Azure setvices better day by day, so far so good.
Encosia 14y ago
I'm running an "established Internet business" on Azure. I moved from VPSes to Azure last year when the "Azure Websites" feature was available. It has saved me money over the VPS instances, actually increased performance a bit at the lower price point, and has dramatically lower administration overhead since I'm using it as PaaS. The only thing negative I could say is that I have a hard time logging into the portal sometimes, due to some weird interaction between my primary MS account and one of my clients' Office365 organizational accounts. So, I sometimes have to switch to an incognito window to log in and use the portal. It's a nuisance, but trivial. Otherwise, I couldn't be happier.

eli 14y ago

I'm hosting some (really) non-critical stuff on a Ubuntu image on it. It seems fine. The manager interface is actually pretty good IMHO, but Linode is really cheap and running Linux on Azure is (I think) still a "beta" feature. I get the hours free though BizSpark. I was thinking of setting it up as a slave/mirror of our main sites for use as a fallover backup. It's been pretty reliable but I haven't done any benchmarks or really tested it in any way. If I had need or inclination to use the Microsoft stack, though, it would definitely be a serious contender.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- joahua 14y ago
  Sounds like it was just because it's free. (BizSpark)

cinquemb 14y ago

Please everyone, not all at once.

Red_Curry 14y ago
I like how HN is so blatantly anti-Microsoft, but Reddit is overly Microsoft supportive. Which hipsters do I believe in?!
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  I don't think it matters. If Azure is challenging AWS, Azure is challenging AWS. Who the buyers are is irrelevant; HNer dollars don't double when you deposit them in your bank.
- cinquemb 14y ago
  I make a quip, and all of a sudden it's something to believe in? Humor me more :D
- thejosh 14y ago
  It depends what subreddit you go onto, HN is pretty small compared to the reddit hivemind.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

niggler 14y ago

I played around with Azure and Heroku for node.js hosting and found that Azure wasn't as painful to setup and didn't trip up as often as Heroku (though my statement should be read as more of a criticism of Heroku than an endorsement of Azure)

gdc 14y ago

I run several services on it. .net/C# compute services. No VMs. No complaints.

bane 14y ago

different question: if you aren't why not? Amazon hasn't exactly been the picture of reliability and Heroku has had some important unanswered questions raised about its dispatch system.

MichaelGG 14y ago

Working on a project right now that will deploy on Azure Platform (not VMs). It's pretty nice to be able offload the OS to a third party and just deploy your app bits, knowing they're going to take care of OS, patching, and in general, server management tasks. On the VM side, they're still catching up, I think. For instance, you can't get multiple IPs routing to a single VM, so if you have multiple SSL sites, you'll need multiple servers in general. (SNI isn't available on IE for XP which is a deal breaker for many people.) But that's probably a reflection more of the mindset of people wanting dedicated servers and thinking "cloud VM" is the same thing, instead of people trying to build distributed applications.

vyrotek 14y ago

I've worked with/for 3 companies all built completely on Azure. I was hired by 2 of the 3 companies to help them switch to Azure. The third is my own startup which has been on Azure since Microsoft launched it. It really is a fantastic platform.

jaynate 14y ago

non-production

dewiz 14y ago

building a new service on Azure here, started 3 monts ago, switching completely from LAMP to .NET. I love working with VS and I'm getting to know Azure setvices better day by day, so far so good.

Encosia 14y ago

I'm running an "established Internet business" on Azure. I moved from VPSes to Azure last year when the "Azure Websites" feature was available. It has saved me money over the VPS instances, actually increased performance a bit at the lower price point, and has dramatically lower administration overhead since I'm using it as PaaS. The only thing negative I could say is that I have a hard time logging into the portal sometimes, due to some weird interaction between my primary MS account and one of my clients' Office365 organizational accounts. So, I sometimes have to switch to an incognito window to log in and use the portal. It's a nuisance, but trivial. Otherwise, I couldn't be happier.