AWS Releases Amazon Linux Container Image For Use in On-Premises Data Centers

Amazon Web Services, a division of Amazon that offers cloud computing and storage services, has released a container image of its Amazon Linux operating system -- which has, until now, only been accessible on AWS virtual machine instances -- that customers can now deploy on their own servers. From a report on VentureBeat: Of course, other Linux distributions are available for use in companies' on-premises data centers -- CentOS, CoreOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Canonical's Ubuntu, and so on. Now companies that are used to Amazon Linux in the cloud can work with it on-premises, too. It's available from AWS' EC2 Container Registry. Amazon Linux is not currently available for instant deployment on other public clouds, whether Oracle's, Google's, Microsoft's, or IBM's. "It is built from the same source code and packages as the AMI and will give you a smooth path to container adoption," AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post. "You can use it as-is or as the basis for your own images."

Why this over CentOS?

[tepples]

In my limited experience with Amazon Linux on an EC2 VPS at work, it has felt essentially the same as any other RPM distribution. What's the big difference between this and CentOS?

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[jamsessionjay]

What's the big difference between this and CentOS?

Potential cloud level vendor lock-in down to the data center. Really hurts moving to any other cloud at that point.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Potential cloud level vendor lock-in down to the data center. Really hurts moving to any other cloud at that point.

yeah, if you're an idiot and make bad assumptions, for the rest of us it's just another linux

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[tepples]

How is it lock-in if it's free software? Or which substantial non-free components are included in what others describe as a middle ground between CentOS and Fedora?

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[fsagx]

More ideal to develop and test locally on the same image if you're using one of these in production, though you can make a centos VM on your own that gets you really close to a standard AMI.

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[Powys]

Besides the question of vendor lockin (a big problem for sure), AmazonLinux is indeed based on Centos, but differs in a few ways, the biggest being that it is a rolling release distro, as opposed to versioned distro (like centos 6, centos 7, etc). AmazonLinux also has a different package source for YUM/RPM with different package versions than Centos has (partly due to the rolling release, partly due to trying to appease the masses and offer more versions of more things).

Re:Why this over CentOS?

[mveloso]

It doesn't have systemd and the other fucked up stuff that Centos7+ has. Example: netstat is still there. So are logfiles, so you don't have to use some retarded tool to look at logfiles. ifconfig still works.

They replaced all those other tools in "modern" linuxes because the older tools were obviously bad, since they were like 5206 years old.

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[mveloso]

Sometimes I think they introduce new tools like ss, ip, and systemd just so that the NSA or some other TLA can stuff backdoors into systems more easily.

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[xanclic]

I feel bad for even replying, but on my CentOS 7 system, I do have netstat and text logs. I don't know who came up with the "systemd only supports binary logs" meme, but it's really getting boring, especially considering that RHEL 7 and CentOS 7 use text logs by default.

Re: Why this over CentOS?

[Billly Gates]

I use Freebsd and don't seem to have this problem. ZFS and jails are nice too

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[rubycodez]

you just made me care about Amazon Linux. Amazing, slashdot rarely does something so drastic to me. Thanks very much!

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[93 Escort Wagon]

In my limited experience with Amazon Linux on an EC2 VPS at work, it has felt essentially the same as any other RPM distribution. What's the big difference between this and CentOS?

I haven't actually used AWS, but I did have to move a Wordpress install (hey, don't judge me) from an external vendor's AWS-hosted site to a local CentOS 7 VM... and I noticed that AWS seemed to include newer versions of certain things, such as PHP (5.6 versus 5.4, IIRC). It also doesn't appear to include systemd.

Re: Why this over CentOS?

[Billly Gates]

Go Freebsd and you never have to worry about eventually upgrading or having very outdated systems. ZFS and jails are nice too!

Trying to get the jump on Azure Stack

[ErichTheRed]

I'm doing lots of work with the other Seattle-based cloud provider's tools, and this seems like it's designed to start the ball rolling on an Azure Stack style deployment model. For those who don't know, Microsoft is going to release an "offline Azure" for on premises use, that uses the same provisioning model, management interface, etc. I think the idea is to at least lock in the companies that don't want to or can't use the public cloud for computing. They're also getting much better at pitching Azure and

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[TheSync]

, Microsoft is going to release an "offline Azure" for on premises use, that uses the same provisioning model, management interface, etc.

VMWare needs some competition to drive down prices...

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I've heard that this is also aimed at companies that have HIPAA compliance requirements and therefore can't legally offload their stuff to the cloud.

Basically it lets Amazon and Microsoft get a foot in the door until they can pay lobbyists enough to get the HIPAA regulations watered down to allow cloud-based storage of medical and treatment data.

You'll see a "HIPAA Certified" cloud service eventually, which of course means nothing in real life (like the "Organic" label on foods), but will allow companies to

Re: Trying to get the jump on Azure Stack

[hsmith]

lol so much misinformation. There is no legal block to storing information in the cloud or using cloud servers. AWS BAA dictates you must use dedicated tenancy and that is about it. There is no such thing as "HIPAA Certification" either, so it is easy to spot you are talking out of your ass.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

There is no such thing as "HIPAA Certification" either, so it is easy to spot you are talking out of your ass.

There is indeed such a thing as "HIPAA Certification", but not as such for cloud services. Just google "HIPAA Certification" and you'll see various companies who provide HIPAA Certification courses. Any organization or person who works in or with the healthcare industry or who has access to protected health information has to be HIPAA compliant.

But you're correct in that there are no “HIPAA-certified” CSPs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the entity responsible for HIPAA,

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[hsmith]

lol, companies making up certifications for training that have no accreditation backing them - yeah congrats. There is no legal backing or accreditation for them, they are worthless sheets of paper. The closest thing is HITRUST.

I haven't used AWS

[93 Escort Wagon]

So this is apparently RPM-based... I assume, then, that we can use yum to keep a VM based on this local image up to date? Does Amazon maintain its own repositories?

What happens to aws-compat project?

[Drunkulus]

I've been using the aws-compat library on Centos for our development systems. It's been ideal and I don't think we'll change. It mimics random I/O problems and occasionally deletes entire servers, just like in AWS. We do a complete run through for every iteration.

counteroffensive...

[Yonsy]

To simplify. AWS Linux try to be an "stable" rpm distro like CentOS 7, with the latest packages, but more closer to a rolling release model, something that Ubuntu discussed years ago and decided not to go. The problem with this work is that is flawed. Many people in AWS, updates ec2 images for their apps, and deploy their images in prod, and work previously in dev/stage/qa before and from this produce this images. And in Databases, AWS gives you more advantages with RDS, SimpleDB and DynamoDB cloud database

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[trevc]

I didn't find your post simplified anything. I assume your first language is not English?