Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says • Hacker News Board

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#181

Post by blaird » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #129

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this as someone who used to firmly agree with this position, but in the last year my mind has been changed without reservation. The time where this was a good idea has genuinely passed. There is no earthly way that any reasonable organization will be able to provide even the security that is present by relying on a large-scale cloud provider. There is no way they will come out on top money-wise either. The big…

I have literally never seen a setup where cloud came out less than ~twice the cost of dedicated hosting. I have seen instances where dedicated hosting comes out cheaper than putting your own equipment in a colo, but even that depends on being in a location where energy and property prices (and so colo rental costs) are high. And this does factor in devops - when doing consulting I earned consistently more (because of…

I think this will always be the case when looking at the base cost of infrastructure itself (price of a compute/GB of storage in the cloud vs on prem)

However, the cost of cloud pays off so dramatically (in my past experience across companies) when you can see what new things the company can do with IaaS/PaaS and how quickly its done.

I've been at a large bank and a small startup that was forced to use an external datacenter, but the result was the same until we went to AWS/GCP: Infra needs were highly manual and often required purchase orders to scale that took months. As soon as we moved to the cloud and embraced infra as code things started to move 5x faster and we could focus on building software and products, not fighting legacy IT teams

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#182

Post by intsunny » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

PasserBy2025 wrote: post #97

adjkant wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the real key. The only notable thing is that Azure was built well enough to play ball against AWS so that the sales team could really work. For developers it seems that Azure tends to settle at a clear #3 behind AWS/GCP for most. It only makes sense that Microsoft would look to carve out an enterprise niche. They seem to have done a decent job keeping their enterprise stuff fresh, I'm honestly surprised they…

> a clear #3 behind AWS/GCP for most Maybe in Google board's dreams? As a developer I like support that is: 1) human; 2) available; 3) does not sunset products every week.

Can you share GCP features Google has sunset every week?

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#183

Post by GordonS » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #180

GordonS wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree - I find the Azure interface, delightful to work with. And best of all, it's consistent , which can't be said for AWS' UI, which mostly looks very dated and differs from service to service. Years ago the Azure UI was a bit slow (but still beautiful to look at), but those issues were solved long ago.

Having functionality splattered all through the god-awful, inexplicably horizontally-scrolling interface is not my idea of “delightful”. Parts of it are URL-stateful, other parts aren’t, and there’s no rhyme or reason for the difference. AWS might look “dated”, but I can’t imagine the mindset that cares about that. If a console is how you’re evaluating your cloud provider you are several steps behind where you need t…

> Having functionality splattered all through

I haven't found functionality to be "splattered" at all. In general, you have a menu on the left for top-level functions, and a button-bar at the top for other things - the layout feels really consistent to me, with the only exception I've noticed being Function Apps.

> inexplicably horizontally-scrolling

At least from a culture with left-right written language, it makes perfect sense to me. Alternatives would be several layers of dialog boxes, or expanding vertically, but I like the Azure portal's way

> AWS might look “dated”, but I can’t imagine the mindset that cares about that

It just feels ugly to work with it. But the bigger issue is the inconsistency - some parts have small variations, others are completely different; it feels very fragmented.

> If a console is how you’re evaluating your cloud provider you are several steps behind where you need to be

Again I'm afraid I disagree. You can work with Azure from a console using cross-platform Powershell Core, or the cross-platform Azure CLI (my preference). There are a host of REST APIs too. I've worked with numerous different Azure services, and I really haven't had any issues here.

> Microsoft support is barely English-literate even when you’re paying for it

On the (free) Microsoft forums, yes, they are complete and utter shit, and I don't know why Microsoft even still hosts them. But I've found the paid-for support at Azure to be very good, and there certainly haven't been any English language issues.

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#184

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

fuzzy2 wrote: post #145

goatinaboat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you always need skilled people but the path from on-prem Windows guy to Azure guy is much shorter and easier than the path from say on-prem Red Hat guy to AWS guy.

I don’t think so. If you’re just spinning up a Windows VM then yes, your Windows guy can take it from there. But that’s not cloud computing. That’s just a “server”. To really use Azure with secured applications using databases, logging, storage, auto-scaling, ... I don’t see how being a Windows guy makes Azure easier to grasp. It’s mostly not even Windows you’re interacting with.

I don’t see how being a Windows guy makes Azure easier to grasp. It’s mostly not even Windows you’re interacting with.

Because you’re already familiar with the Microsoft ecosystem and they have invested a lot in making it a smooth transition. If you know C# or Powershell or use Visual Studio and watch Channel 9 and know your way around MSDN etc etc etc it’s all the same. Whereas AWS is a cold start and uphill in comparison.

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#185

Post by code4tee » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

These results are misleading for the same reasons why Microsoft’s market share claims are misleading.

Microsoft counts things like Office 365 and Azure AD as “cloud.” If you look at people truly using their cloud products in terms of things that pair off against AWS offerings the picture looks vastly different.

I’ve worked with many companies recently that are broadly “all in” on AWS but still use O365 and AD as core to their infrastructure. All these surveys and studies count such companies as Azure users but in practice they’re really not. Equally the companies that are still mostly not in the cloud but use O365 and maybe Azure AD for some 3rd party app auth are also counted as Microsoft Cloud users when they’re really not.

As they say 82% of statistics are mostly made up.

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#186

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #169

romanovcode wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not HN narration but a simple fact. > Amazon Web Services accounted for almost 33% of global cloud spending, while Microsoft had nearly 17% and Google had just under 7% https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-brass-set-202...

AIUI, Microsoft juices those numbers a bit by including Office365. Yes, it’s in the “cloud”, but it’s not exactly apples-to-apples with AWS.

Does Google not include Google Apps or whatever they call their Office365 competitor in their number?

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#187

Post by mitchty » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

dcolebatch wrote: post #139

vidarh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have literally never seen a setup where cloud came out less than ~twice the cost of dedicated hosting. I have seen instances where dedicated hosting comes out cheaper than putting your own equipment in a colo, but even that depends on being in a location where energy and property prices (and so colo rental costs) are high. And this does factor in devops - when doing consulting I earned consistently more (because of…

I suspect you’re doing it wrong , or there’s some niche type of computing you specialize in. In general purpose IT, looking across an enterprise portfolio of applications, we consistently see customers of Tidal Migrations replatform their applications to cloud and save 95+% in OpEx vs dedicated on-premise hosting. IMO, The first step to realizing those cost benefits is recognizing that the cloud is not your datacente…

> IMO, The first step to realizing those cost benefits is recognizing that the cloud is not your datacenter and you need to architect differently.

I see you've never setup or had to deal with setting up SAP. There are a ton of legacy line of business applications which, won't be close to "cloud" any time in the near future. And are all run on if you're lucky, vm clusters, if you're unlucky on bare iron due to silly crap like per cpu licensing on where it "might" be run. Or if virtualized, a sum of all the physical hardware cpu's.

"Enterprise" software running on premises is... problematic at best. Good luck replatforming something like this. They ask for your arm, leg, first unborn child, and your great grandkids children for the opportunity to run their software.

I'm avoiding talking about the vendors that require up to or over a month to have a contractor on site helping you "integrate and install" their application on your systems. That crap is so far removed from instant and decentralized resource provisioning its like being in another universe. God help you if you need to change anything.

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#188

Post by BoorishBears » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

laurentb wrote: post #102

addicted wrote: post #22

I think everyone here is missing the real reason why big companies want to go with Azure (and smaller companies probably should consider too). No one trusts Amazon to not screw them over. The A to Z in the Amazon logo hurts AWS because big companies are worried Amazon will compete with them (if they don’t already) and will use AWS data and information against those companies. MS has a long history of being a provider…

You're mistaken if you think Microsoft doesn't compete directly with its partners. If anything, they are very sneaky how they do it, every ISV knows and yet still collaborates with them. SharePoint improvements have been built and incorporated out of the box because/thanks to ISV's, Flow (now PowerAutomate) is a direct inspiration and competition from one of MS historical partners in the SharePoint space called Ninte…

That's not what they mean, Amazon will compete with companies on non-technical grounds.

You can craft artisanal hand napkins; tomorrow morning 365 Everyday launches their new premium hand napkins with free same-day shipping.

So now every dollar you spend hosting your e-commerce site is directly funding your competitor, which is able to out perform you on the back of insane profits from things like... AWS

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#189

Post by bluedevilzn » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

oxfordmale wrote: post #12

I think this article is comparing apple and pears to some extend. My company is solely cloud based and are using Azure, AWS and GCP, although 98% of our bespoke infrastructure runs on AWS. We could migrate this infrastructure to GCP, as Google has been catching up with AWS on cloud infrastructure, however, I would dread to migrate it all to Azure. We mostly use Azure for Azure AD (and Office 365), and AWS to build ou…

How different are the APIs between Azure/AWS/GCP? How easy or difficult would it be to make that switch?

Re: Azure has an edge over AWS at big companies, Goldman Sachs survey says

#190

Post by valleyjo » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #125

thawaway1837 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they crush competitors. Not so much partners and clients. These are all tool makers and basically competitors. And frankly for the vast majority of them they actually bought the alternatives. For example, they bought Skype for messaging, they bought Great Plains, etc.

They ran Skype into the ground by compromising on the quality of the end user-experience - just like they did with MSN Messenger - and the current desktop Skype client is an Electron app (at least this way Linux still gets supported...). Skype was in prime position to be the best way to have free voice and video-calls between iOS and Android phones and the wider Internet (seeming as FaceTime is Apple-exclusive and Ha…

Microsoft tried to buy slack but they wouldn’t sell.