Microsoft Joins Open Compute Project, Will Share Server Designs 90
1sockchuck writes "Microsoft has joined the Open Compute Project and will be contributing specs and designs for the cloud servers that power Bing, Windows Azure and Office 365. "We came to the conclusion that sharing these hardware innovations will help us accelerate the growth of cloud computing," said Kushagra Vaid, Microsoft's General Manager of Cloud Server Engineering. The company is also releasing its Chassis Manager software that manages its servers, fans and power, which which is now available on GitHub. "We would like to help build an open source software community within OCP as well," said Microsoft's Bill Laing. Microsoft's cloud server hardware is built around a 12U chassis that can house up to 24 server and storage blades, offering a different approach from the current Open Compute server and storage designs."
Cloud (Score:2, Interesting)
"We came to the conclusion that sharing these hardware innovations will help us accelerate the growth of cloud computing,"
I really don't get this so perhaps someone can explain: What benefit does this have for anybody?
The great thing about standards... (Score:5, Interesting)
So many to choose from. On the hardware side, they didn't like the current hardware design that Facebook liked (with good reason) and so provided an entirely different set of design sensibilities. This isn't about enhanced standardization, this is about a nice-sounding venue by which to deliver requirements to bidders for MS datacenter equipment. I will say at first glance, I like MS's requirements better than Facebook requirements. The points that I'd worry about would be firmware requirements (MS tends to get insane with network protocols) and the unique IO design which limits the market of compliant equipment (basically, the same that can be said of IBM bladecenter, flex, Dell M1000, etc etc).
On the software side, you'll note that it's in .Net. It's very much not in the realm of typical open source datacenter operations projects. MS once again is stuck having to build the infrastructure themselves for lack of a wider community using their tooling for the purposes MS needs. Of course, MS has historically impressed me with how well they manage to do while being a 'lone wolf'.
They have to... (Score:3, Interesting)
MS sees an overwhelming trend of Linux oriented software for operations management. They don't have the same mountain of people working to do similar stuff but with .Net. They want that mountain of companies and people building an ecosystem around .Net, but it's not happening naturally. MS has only the hope of putting out there and hoping to prime the pump.
Re:Cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
Additional customer lock-in. Personally, I would like to see a service which (may already exist, please tell me if it does) where I can host my own data at home and then have various forms of access to it from my phone or laptop or tablet or whatever. It should not require a static or known/named dynamic IP address. I like the idea of a relay server out there on the internet which enables the two peers to connect whether behind a firewall or not. VPN linking to my home network would be a nice addition maybe.
So who's got something like this for free?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:a non-addition to the team. (Score:4, Interesting)
1. You just need a Microsoft Account. It can be created with any email address and not necessarily a Microsoft TLD. There is nothing specific to IE. The entire process can be done with Firefox.
2. It is not unreasonable to have to verify a new subscription via email. This is common place in environments where security is rather important.
3. The fact that you have Linux as an option is rather surprising. Azure is primarily a Windows cloud computing environment which a very large group of businesses are interested in. If you're looking to deploy an enterprise cluster of Linux servers and services, you're probably in the wrong place.
4. Seriously? Why would you navigate away from a "provisioning your server" processing dialog? You didn't have an extra browser tab to peruse Slashdot with?
5. I've never seen this occur, but I'll take your word for it. If it was a mistake, then they clearly deserve some criticism. But are you suggesting you want them to provision your new server for you? Do you expect them to be logging every configuration change you made so they can reproduce every thing you did on another server instance in another datacenter? I'll concede that this is an unfortunate error on their part, but honestly, you can delete and re-create servers with a few clicks of the mouse.
6. There is not "an ocean" of more capable cloud computing environments available. Particularly if you are have strong ties to a Windows environment. Active Directory is included in all of the subscriptions for free. Use it if you want, or ignore it. It's your choice.
Your rhetoric is the only thing that is "bad comedy" here. Like it or not, MS has a pretty successful enterprise software business. I don't see how them sharing some of their insights into this industry as anything but a positive for the open source community. Or do you believe their massive research investments should be kept under lock and key? Or maybe you believe that a huge team of talented engineers has absolutely NOTHING to contribute to OCP because the company they work for has produced a few unsuccessful products. Either way, I think attitudes like yours are detrimental.