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Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

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Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#21

Post by tombert »

code_duck wrote: post #15
tombert wrote: post #11

This is hardly surprising. Not to crap on MS, but I do think Linux has traditionally just been a better operating system for servers, probably due to the fact that that's where most of the funding for Linux ends up going, with the desktop versions of Linux being sort of secondary. It doesn't help that a lot of serverey software is kind of designed with POSIX-ey stuff in mind. Node.js took awhile to get Windows suppor…

It just makes sense to run a server OS that works well and is full-featured when there is no GUI.

You know, I was thinking this, but honestly how much overhead is the Windows GUI when no one is logged into it? I know it's not nothing, but I suspect it's not that much, is it?

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#22

Post by angry_octet »

outside1234 wrote: post #8
rbanffy wrote: post #6

50%?! That's surprisingly low.

It is more that the percentage of workloads that are running Windows that are hosted on Azure (vs. GCP or Amazon) is very high.

I would like to know what percentage of those core hours are servers (Windows Svr, Nano vs Unix) vs desktops (Azure virtual desktop). I know there has been a huge scale up in cloud desktops in the last few months.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#23

Post by jamieweb »

I'm interested to know what the majority of the Windows machines are used for.

I can't think it'd be anything other than 'big enterprise' applications, where there seems to be a lot of bespoke stuff built specifically for Windows Server (e.g. finance software, healthcare systems, marriage registration, taxi licensing, nursing home management, etc).

Unfortunately this sort of stuff is fairly rare to be available in the open-source world, because there is such little demand for it by individuals.

The wackiest one I've come across is a CMS (Crematorium Management System). If anyone wants to create an open-source one with me, please get in touch...!

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#24

Post by freefriedrice »

whoisjuan wrote: post #17

I found it funny when in Azure you create a resource and you can pick between Windows and Linux for the host and Windows is the default option... like bro, I’m not gonna run my shit on Windows walled and heavily licensed garden. What if tomorrow I have to migrate my stuff somewhere else. Are you crazy? P.S: I know there are legitimate reasons for running something on Windows but for any generic project that shouldn’t…

I've been working with Linux and BSD for so long, I don't even know of any Microsoft-only cloud applications. I'm completely *nix bubbled. I cannot imagine cloud programming on windows, probably because I only write user-space native apps. Is there a Puppet or Ansible for windows? I'd be completely lost.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#25

Post by angry_octet »

ch_123 wrote: post #12
babarock wrote: post #2

Between this and their Azure Sphere product, Microsoft may very well be the largest Linux vendor today. As someone who discovered Unix in the early 00s, this makes me chuckle. What a world!

They were possibly the largest Unix vendor in the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

Define "largest" in the right way and that might be true, as the market was very fragmented, but certainly not in terms of market share.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#26

Post by eitland »

tombert wrote: post #11

This is hardly surprising. Not to crap on MS, but I do think Linux has traditionally just been a better operating system for servers, probably due to the fact that that's where most of the funding for Linux ends up going, with the desktop versions of Linux being sort of secondary. It doesn't help that a lot of serverey software is kind of designed with POSIX-ey stuff in mind. Node.js took awhile to get Windows suppor…

> in the little bit of testing that I've done with this, .NET Core is faster on Linux than Windows.

My experience as well. In fact it was extremely much faster.

- Hello world took something like 5 seconds to run on Windows

- on Linux (a VM on the exact same laptop, with the same Windows running underneath in fact) it was so fast I had to use the time command to figure out how many milliseconds it took :-)

FTR: while it was hardly scientific I actually put some effort into trying to make sure it was equal.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#27

Post by GordonS »

jamieweb wrote: post #23

I'm interested to know what the majority of the Windows machines are used for. I can't think it'd be anything other than 'big enterprise' applications, where there seems to be a lot of bespoke stuff built specifically for Windows Server (e.g. finance software, healthcare systems, marriage registration, taxi licensing, nursing home management, etc). Unfortunately this sort of stuff is fairly rare to be available in th…

Microsoft uses Windows behind the scenes on a lot of their managed services, but specifically for VMs on Azure... I'm as clueless as you (and I say that as someone who work in the enterprise space for mostly Microsoft shops).

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#28

Post by freefriedrice »

tombert wrote: post #11

This is hardly surprising. Not to crap on MS, but I do think Linux has traditionally just been a better operating system for servers, probably due to the fact that that's where most of the funding for Linux ends up going, with the desktop versions of Linux being sort of secondary. It doesn't help that a lot of serverey software is kind of designed with POSIX-ey stuff in mind. Node.js took awhile to get Windows suppor…

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing.

Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea of multiple users didn't appear until Win3.1 for workgroups, decades after multiuser OSes. WinNT started to take protected mode seriously, but they re-invented networking from an MS perspective (e.g., POP/SNMP? nope: MSExchange).

It's not a surprise that Windows is such a mess under the hood compared to Linux/BSD/Unix/SystemV when you look at the history of Windows. I dunno, maybe that's not fair, but switching between *nux and Windows from a networking / distributed computing perspective is jarring. And that's just for simple things (interface config, tracing, configuration of multiple adapters and bridges...)

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#29

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

eitland wrote: post #26
tombert wrote: post #11

This is hardly surprising. Not to crap on MS, but I do think Linux has traditionally just been a better operating system for servers, probably due to the fact that that's where most of the funding for Linux ends up going, with the desktop versions of Linux being sort of secondary. It doesn't help that a lot of serverey software is kind of designed with POSIX-ey stuff in mind. Node.js took awhile to get Windows suppor…

> in the little bit of testing that I've done with this, .NET Core is faster on Linux than Windows. My experience as well. In fact it was extremely much faster. - Hello world took something like 5 seconds to run on Windows - on Linux (a VM on the exact same laptop, with the same Windows running underneath in fact) it was so fast I had to use the time command to figure out how many milliseconds it took :-) FTR: while…

That does not make sense at all. The files were probably cached in the Linux case.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#30

Post by pmiller2 »

jamieweb wrote: post #23

I'm interested to know what the majority of the Windows machines are used for. I can't think it'd be anything other than 'big enterprise' applications, where there seems to be a lot of bespoke stuff built specifically for Windows Server (e.g. finance software, healthcare systems, marriage registration, taxi licensing, nursing home management, etc). Unfortunately this sort of stuff is fairly rare to be available in th…

Other than bespoke enterprise apps, my guess would be the majority of the remaining Windows machines run SQL server.
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