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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

#41

Post by ghostpepper »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #36
freefriedrice wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> " Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. " Windows 9x came from the single-user domain but is long dead except for compatibility stuff left over in modern Windows. Windows NT and its successors came from server space from its VMS lineage.

I have to wonder what percentage of the Windows 10 codebase is for backwards compatibility.

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

#42

Post by flohofwoe »

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…

I don't have actual numbers obviously, but I'd imagine that a lot of Xbox multiplayer game backends and probably all of Xbox Live is running on Azure Windows servers, and Xbox is a pretty big platform by number of users.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/microsoft-wants-azur...

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/gaming/

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

#43

Post by willtim »

cameronbrown wrote: post #39
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…

Virtual desktops or straight up on-prem to cloud migration might be my guess. If big companies can avoid it, why pay the cost of a rewrite? > Crematorium Management System Genuine question: why can't you use Microsoft Access or G Suite for this? Seems like the canonical data entry use case these products are designed for.

A Crematorium Management System built in Microsoft Access is still a Crematorium Management System.

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

#44

Post by jamieweb »

GordonS wrote: post #27
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).

I was surprised to see that the web server for www.microsoft.com reports via the 'Server:' header that it runs on IIS 10.

To me that just seems weird... even though it's their product.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

flohofwoe wrote: post #42
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…

I don't have actual numbers obviously, but I'd imagine that a lot of Xbox multiplayer game backends and probably all of Xbox Live is running on Azure Windows servers, and Xbox is a pretty big platform by number of users. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/microsoft-wants-azur... https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/gaming/

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by z3t4 »

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…

I was on the Windows platform for 15 years and moved over to Linux about 6 years ago. One thing I miss from Windows Server is that it was very stable, updates never broke anything. If you got any updates that is. I think most people use Windows server because they are locked into Microsoft technology.

I switched to Linux, and most importantly open source technology - in order to get out of the Windows ecosystem. I switched from an ASP stack to Node.JS, but it feels Microsoft is still stalking me, buying NPM, Github, releasing their own JavaScript flavor, releasing their own "open source" software bundled with proprietary add-ons, meanwhile suing Linux users for patent breach.

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

#47

Post by sandworm101 »

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…

>>The wackiest one I've come across is a CMS (Crematorium Management System).

If anyone is looking for something to open source: Meet manager. Since the 90s it has been the go-to software for running competative swimming meets (timing, heats organization etc). It's a niche market but is alway a very broad and steady user base. (Similar software is also used for track and field meets.)

http://activesupport.force.com/hytekswimming/articles/en_US/...

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

#48

Post by code_duck »

tombert wrote: post #21
code_duck wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't mean as far as idle resource usage.

The advantage of Linux is when you want to accomplish tasks without a great internet connection, but the windows tools are not evolved enough as far as command line functionality.

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

#49

Post by martinald »

freefriedrice wrote: post #28
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…

I think both are a mess under the hood. I cannot make sense of where things will be configured in Linux. maybe /etc/, maybe somewhere else, with loads of setting file configurations. There's not a huge amount of consistency.

What would be interesting is a complete re-imagining of a server OS. Consistent file locations for everything, which are automatically versioned a la git allowing you to roll back any specific change, built into the OS level. All processes totally sandboxed from each other with specific permission elevations as required (like iOS).

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

#50

Post by _jal »

whoisjuan wrote: post #20
azinman2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you’re suggesting it’s crazy that Microsoft would suggest their own OS as the default, right?

Wouldn’t be crazy if Windows wasn’t a licensed closed source OS, but that’s exactly what it is. That’s the definition of vendor lock.

Maybe ask it a different way. Is it crazy for a bar that brews its own beer to prefer to serve it?
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