Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

build5nines.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 348 posts

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

#241

Post by freefriedrice »

useerup wrote: post #142
tombert wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that networking stuff feels pretty frustrating on Windows compared to POSIXey stuff; for the most part using a good networking library like (as mentioned above) ZeroMQ or even some of the built-in JVM socketing stuff will help abstract it, but Unix sockets are simply better out of the box. Even a simpler example though; the fact that there wasn't really a built-in analog for the "pipe" until PowerShell sort o…

Windows IO model - including network - is arguably much more well designed than anything POSIX, thanks not least to Dave Cutler and his team. From the get-go Windows NT (Win32) had a common model for overlapped IO (async IO in today's parlance). This async capability permeated everything from disk IO to network IO, and works well today with USB, Thunderbolt etc. Mind you, this model has not changed while Unix/Linux/P…

This is a very enlightening post, thank you. I don't often develop cross platform to this depth, and I think it is a wise reminder that Microsoft actually knows a thing or two about operating systems, contrary to popular opinion. It's almost like the application teams sabotage the OS teams...

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

#242

Post by tracker1 »

GordonS wrote: post #31
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…

I've used Windows on desktop since 3.1, and nowadays Windows 10 is my daily driver - IMO it's the best desktop OS, and always has been. But for servers, I much prefer Linux. It uses less resources, and it's so much easier to get it into a known and consistent state that Windows. Also, something about having a GUI for servers has always felt... wrong somehow!

WSL2 is the only thing that has made Windows bearable for me. That and VS Code's remote extensions. Almost everything I use is cross platform for years now.

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

#243

Post by BrentOzar »

tw04 wrote: post #227
balnaphone wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company I consult for specializes in SQL Server applications. There is a significant push to Linux from both the largest customers, paying over 150k$/month for server licensing and hosting, and from the smallest companies, who are severely budget-conscious. The big customers have teams fluent in both Linux and Windows, and the smallest outsource their DBAs and sysadmins, so in both cases the cost is mostly a one-ti…

I'm surprised to hear that to be quite honest. The feature gap is still pretty significant for any serious production deployment. MS is working hard to close the gap, but given basic enterprise features like database mirroring still aren't there - I'm not sure why any large enterprise would shift at this point. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-...

> given basic enterprise features like database mirroring still aren't there

Database mirroring has been deprecated for several years. The replacement is Always On Availability Groups, which is vaguely supported on Linux.

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

#244

Post by balnaphone »

tw04 wrote: post #227
balnaphone wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company I consult for specializes in SQL Server applications. There is a significant push to Linux from both the largest customers, paying over 150k$/month for server licensing and hosting, and from the smallest companies, who are severely budget-conscious. The big customers have teams fluent in both Linux and Windows, and the smallest outsource their DBAs and sysadmins, so in both cases the cost is mostly a one-ti…

I'm surprised to hear that to be quite honest. The feature gap is still pretty significant for any serious production deployment. MS is working hard to close the gap, but given basic enterprise features like database mirroring still aren't there - I'm not sure why any large enterprise would shift at this point. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-...

My understanding is that feature (database mirroring) was deprecated many years ago, for availability groups. There were some limitations in the Analytics area, but that customer was using another solution for most of that anyway. There were also some features of SQL Agent that were discarded (scheduling events or something) but in each case there is some officially supported route to accomplish the same task.

You can find most of the material we reviewed in the official MS documentation:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-...

For example, here's the note about deprecating database mirroring:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-...

> Database mirroring, which was deprecated in SQL Server 2012, is not available on the Linux version of SQL Server nor will it be added. Customers still using database mirroring should start planning to migrate to availability groups, which is the replacement for database mirroring.

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

#245

Post by mroche »

dmw_ng wrote: post #55
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…

You don't see it on HN much but the Windows world is still massive, and there are still plenty of ASP.NET folk around. I'd suppose you only have to take half a footstep outside the "pure Internet services" sphere to start bumping into lots of Windows, in pretty much any direction you happen to step. There are also whole industries where Windows has a particularly strong influence, e.g. (from experience) some parts of…

> I imagine things like render farms or other specialist graphics work

Eh... outside of the broadcast motion graphics group, small personal/business farms, or educational institutions this is largely a majority Linux area.*

*I'm speaking from the perspective of public cloud farms and the feature film industry (for VFX and Anim). You can't escape Windows for select software and plugins, but if it's not a strict requirement by the software, then it's a business choice for other reasons (i.e. existing environment, staff, etc) because you will from a technical standpoint operate at a loss using Windows.

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

#246

Post by alexchantavy »

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…

Identity management with Active Directory is probably the biggest plus of a Windows environment; there's a saying that goes something like "in the end, every identity system ends up trying to be AD". Sure, you can run OpenLDAP on Linux and effectively get a domain controller, but the ready-to-go nature of AD on Windows Server is very compelling, especially for larger businesses.

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

#247

Post by greggyb »

Wohlf wrote: post #9
greggyb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think WSL counts if not enabled?

Optional OS features are stored in WinSxS in case users decide to enable them, so technically they are shipping the Linux kernel with all recent pro/enterprise installs.

I actually was thinking further on this. WSL is not a Linux kernel. In WSL1, it's a syscall translation layer. In WSL2, it's a highly integrated virtualization environment.

You do have to install a Linux distro. So the kernel's not shipping, just an environment in which a kernel can be installed.

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

#248

Post by fomine3 »

kryogen1c wrote: post #174
pnutjam wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of servers that are used for basic filesharing and Domain authentication are dwarfed by the number of servers used for applications and databases. Linux has can manage a Windows Domain, but it doesn't support all the GPO's etc... Windows can also manage linux authentication, but likewise is missing parts for advanced usage.

> The number of servers that are used for basic filesharing and Domain authentication are dwarfed by the number of servers used for applications and databases while this is probably true, it entirely misses the point. it's only true because a very, very small number of megacompanies consume huge amounts of servers; a more accurate number for this discussion would be server per company. Nearly every business larger th…

Maybe not on Azure but on-prem?

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

#249

Post by youdonthavekids »

aea12 wrote: post #194
kbenson wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all in how you interpret it. Let me show you some other interpretations of what you read. > 1) Unfortunately, someone took a conversation about a purchase request as a chance to speak to [me] in a personal capacity "I was checking in on different departments, to make sure everyting was running smoothly, but got drawn into a non-work discussion I didn't really expect or have a lot of time for, but that's okay, he…

“You have interpreted incorrectly. Here’s the correct interpretation. I’ve interpreted you incorrectly by assuming your remarks have something to do with tech moguls despite your drawing a map in crayon for me about engineering ethics. I do not intend to address that interpretation because I have announced my exit from this conversation, as normal people do, but your misinterpretation is fair game for me to dissect w…

Not a big fan of your comments but I really don't like the fact you're being censored.

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

#250

Post by fomine3 »

tracker1 wrote: post #231
adwww wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went for a while of bumping into lots of job opportuntities using the Microsoft stack, and thought perhaps it would be good for my career to learn a bit. But the barrier to entry seemed so high at the time - you needed MSDN subscriptions, paid IDEs, and paid servers. All out of my reach as a self taught junior developer. I don't know how or where everyone learnt it all, except as graduate developers at BigCorp?

I used "C# The Complete Reference" with the command line compilers to learn it in the later beta and through the 2002 release. No IDE, just a windows desktop. I think VS Community started in 2015... there was also a SharpDevelop and MonoDevelop option in between, from pretty early on. I used SharpDevelop on my own projects for a number of years. Around 2011 I started using Node more and have been back and forth on pr…

Visual Studio Express was available before Community getting available.
Post reply on HN