Linux Usage on Azure Has Surpassed Windows, Microsoft Developer Reveals (zdnet.com) 83
An anonymous reader shares a report: Three and a half years ago, Mark Russinovich, Azure CTO, Microsoft's cloud, said, "One in four [Azure] instances are Linux." Next, in 2017, Microsoft revealed that 40% of Azure virtual machines (VM) were Linux-based. Then in the fall of 2018, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive VP of the cloud and enterprise group, told me in an exclusive interview, "About half Azure VMs are Linux". Now, Sasha Levin, Microsoft Linux kernel developer, in a request that Microsoft be allowed to join a Linux security list, revealed that "the Linux usage on our cloud has surpassed Windows." Shocking you say? Not really. Linux is largely what runs enterprise computing both on in-house servers and on the cloud. Windows Server has been declining for years. In the most recent IDC Worldwide Operating Systems and Subsystems Market Shares report covering 2017, Linux had 68% of the market. Its share has only increased since then.
Re:Never underestimate the power of "free" (Score:5, Informative)
Hardware support was only ever "dreadful" on cheap lowend desktop boxes, because the producers of those boxes never intended them to run anything other than windows and so never made any effort to test compatibility with linux or ensure driver availability.
However this article is talking about servers, and most if not all server vendors have ensured their hardware is fully supported by linux for many years now.
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Over the past 20+ years using Linux. High End Servers (even one which the vendors say they support Linux) have had odd issues in term of hardware compatibility.
For example One time we got a Dell Rack Mount server where we had it with two network cards. With a combination of Beta Drivers we couldn't use that combination of different networking cards, at the same time. Which was a problem as the server needed the duel network setup. The server needed to be returned to Dell, and replaced with a different bra
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And I've seen Windows-based machines with their own quirks. Immediately coming to mind was a Toshiba desktop computer with an early USB device, a display that was designed to receive information from the winmodem on caller ID and any unread voicemail. Unfortunately the winmodem and USB controller shipped with an IRQ conflict, so the modem and the USB controller didn't work at the same time.
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With a combination of Beta Drivers we couldn't use that combination of different networking cards, at the same time. Which was a problem as the server needed the duel network setup.
Sounds like you got exactly what you asked for...
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However this article is talking about servers
No this article is talking about virtual servers. A whole different beast entirely.
Re:Never underestimate the power of "free" (Score:5, Informative)
This comment is somewhat pointless as it's about Azure which is a managed cloud like AWS or Google Cloud. You (the customer) never see hardware in this scenario. At most you see a virtual machine, and usually not even that.
Hardware support for Linux vs Windows is entirely irrelevant when MS is the one buying the hardware.
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This comment is somewhat pointless as it's about Azure which is a managed cloud like AWS or Google Cloud. You (the customer) never see hardware in this scenario. At most you see a virtual machine, and usually not even that.
Hardware support for Linux vs Windows is entirely irrelevant when MS is the one buying the hardware.
HW support for Linux has been largely irrelevant for years now. You make sure the hardware supports the hypervisor and the hypervisor supports Linux.
Now with Azure, Microsoft are cutting their own arms off to get customers to sign on offering them killer deals, at least here in the UK, such as £10,000 of credit in pre-production to get people using their platform so they can do a bait and switch later. I've seen several customers get a shock bill from Microsoft already because they were quoted at a
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AWS and Google Cloud do the same "free tier" to lure you in. The real costs are pretty similar regardless of which of the 3 you go with.
The MS value proposition with Azure is that it's easy to virtualize your existing Windows servers and move to Azure instances (where the cost will kill you). The secret sauce to keeping your costs down is to reengineer your applications and infrastructure to use scalable metered services instead of dedicated running virtual machines.
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Netcraft confirms it (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows is dying.
According to the June 2019 webserver survey [netcraft.com], Microsoft now has a 6% marketshare among active sites.
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This! You can almost guarantee that for all those non-Windows webservers, there's a venerable army of Windows Exchange Servers, Active Directory Servers, Sharepoint Servers, Skype Servers, and what not else supporting the many thousands of windows clients behind it.
My own company is a Windows shop, so much so that we're all cloudy to the point where if I lock myself out of my PC I just need to reset my Office365 password, all my files are on Sharepoint, and I only ever talk to coworkers using Teams. Yet a l
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If you're still stuck with Exchange I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but email ain't one.
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This! You can almost guarantee that for all those non-Windows webservers, there's a vulnerable army of Windows Exchange Servers, Active Directory Servers, Sharepoint Servers, Skype Servers, and what not else supporting the many thousands of windows clients behind it.
FTFY :)
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Not necessary, would be my guess, if Azure is set of protocols.
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i myself found more interesting how for the first time nginx now has more users than apache.
netcraft confirms it, apache is getting clobbered
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Right, it's the cost and it's the fact that Linux is better than Windows.
Not suprising at all (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't get too excited, this still isn't the year of the Linux desktop.
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Can you compare industrial stability of the Linux to the Windows Server, really? So, you do not gamble, when you are serious.
Where one does use Windows Server, is internal infrastructure, boxes running popular software, internal file sharing, serving Windows clients, equipped with MS Office. Damn standard business infrastructure (made of vaguely business grade software).
Departing into the cloud, Linux can be (and apparently is) well preferred, if capable to deliver principally.
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Old divorcees getting back together . . . ? (Score:2)
It would interesting to know how many of these VMs are RHEL. Since IBM now owns Red Hat that would mean that IBM and Microsoft are sleeping with each other again . . . years after their messy divorce over OS/2 back in the 80's.
For some reason, I find that thought to be more than mildly amusing.
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For some reason, I find that thought to be more than mildly amusing.
Immortal people can't afford to truly burn bridges. They'll always run into their ex's again eventually.
Remember kids, groups of people are magically people too!
OS Licence Cost and Cost of Validation. (Score:4)
With Linux you can scale up much faster, because you don't need to go to purchasing, and legal when you exceed your licenses. As well, if you need to trim down your services, you are not leaving money on the table having unused licenses. As most companies are just riding the current fad, Investing into an OS puts you at a disadvantage.
Now an other key thing, if you are investing into Windows Server, you are probably also getting SQL Server, and other MS tools all setup and configured to run locally, and you will not necessarily have the need for Azure, if you have already payed thousands of dollars for an IT infrastructure to run Windows Server.
Re:OS Licence Cost and Cost of Validation. (Score:4, Informative)
not necessarily, many software mandate running on Red Hat or SLES, and you must pay if you want to access repositories for updates and be supported.
That said, with some of those distros you can license per physical hosts, and spin up as many virtual hosts as you want.
On Microsoft's cloud, last when I looked, Linux for 2 cpu VM was 27% cheaper than windows.
Re: OS Licence Cost and Cost of Validation. (Score:1)
He's correct - there is software out there that mandates a supported version of Linux if you want support for it. This drives a significant proportion of sales for RedHat et al, the other being critical elements you need support for. For some things running up a load of CentOS is acceptable, though.
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I am a professional and this is part of my expertise.
Get a job, manlette. Then you'll have an opinion worth something.
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Irrelevant comparison because Azure is Microsoft's cloud service and therefore you don't pay separately for Windows or SQL licensing. If you pick a Windows host for your service then the license cost is already built into the cost of the host. MS prices the Linux and Windows hosts identically.
Windows costs more to run on metered services (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising... I've been doing a bunch of cloud work on Azure in the last 6 months and every service we're running that's capable of being cross-platform runs approximately 50% faster on the Linux-provisioned resources instead of the Windows-provisioned resources. I've rate-tested each of them to verify. Mostly it's not in the compute time, it's in the time it takes for the service to startup or auto-scale.
When you're paying for metered services or care about time-to-complete, why wouldn't you opt for the faster Linux offering?
The only stuff we have in Azure running on Windows-based services is a couple of .Net webapps that I strongly doubt have been safely written to be cross-platform.
Why MS is showing love (Score:3)
Tried to kill it, failed... if you can't beat them, join them.
Good news though.
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Microsoft gave a metric buttload of fuck about Linux and did everything in their power to knife it, and still lost the war. Idiots.
Problem is how we measure (Score:3)
Most metrics quoted are for total sales dollars.
This shortchanges the bulk of Linux, which is blade computers used by hundreds of users, but which are much cheaper than most single user Windows workstations.
When you aren't wasting most of your purchase price on things you don't need, your price drops.
So, yes, it can both be true, as Microsoft says, that they have the majority of computer purchases (in dollar amounts), and it can also be true, that the majority of users are using Linux.
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Most metrics quoted are for total sales dollars.
Oracle is going to sell one license and knock everyone else off the charts.
On TVLinux in 2004, I predicted Linux would rule (Score:3)
obvious? (Score:2)
god, the idea alone of running windows in the cloud, gives me shivers.
ha ha (Score:2)
Nelson Muntz sends his regards