Peering Into Microsoft's Cloud
On July 24th, Microsoft held their annual Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM), an event where many of Microsoft's top executives come together to talk about the company's progress and achievements. At this year's meeting, Microsoft Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie hinted at Microsoft's cloud initiatives, a part of their Software + Services (S+S) strategy. While Ozzie did not reveal either codenames or ship dates during his speech, there is still some information we can piece together to help determine what Microsoft's cloud will look like.
The Connected OS
Ozzie Said:
"We believe in a future, again, in many ways analogous to Xbox LIVE, in which Windows Live acts as a strategic extension to both Windows on the PC and Windows Mobile on the phone. You can think of this as the connected OS, Windows beyond the level of a single device or PC. How the OS connects to services and how it synchronizes with other devices are key. Your PC's config settings, your apps and their settings, your files and folders, are transparently synchronized across a mesh of PCs and other devices by Windows."
Takeaway:
This is a reference to Windows Live Mesh, a platform that currently only does file sync but is designed to also sync settings and applications. Today, many people are still confused about Mesh, thinking it's Microsoft's competitor to Apple's MobileMe service, but the hint here is that Mesh will go deeper than just a premium service for cloud storage and sync, to be a more of an overall cloud computing platform.
The Software Stack
Ozzie Said:
"Most major enterprises today find themselves in the early stages of a two-stage infrastructure transition. The first stage is the consolidation of many dedicated application servers into a fewer number of larger application servers using virtualization to combine those workloads into a single high-scale box. The second stage they're heading into is the shift toward leveraging utility computing services, a new kind of system designed for massive scale-outs, running on large redundant arrays of inexpensive commodity servers in the cloud. Both of these trends, consolidation and utility computing, are motivated by the same two things: First, to make the best use of expensive IT personnel; and second, to increase the agility of IT -- agility in deployment, agility in management, deploying and scaling IT systems in just minutes or hours that might have taken in the past weeks or months to get up and running. Earlier you heard Stephen and others talk about online services, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, CRM Online. These are the high-level service analogs to on-premises server offerings. And to power these services at scale, we're bringing some of our most capable server assets to the cloud beyond those key building blocks, like SQL Server and BizTalk."
Takeaway:
Hey, that looks familiar! Microsoft's software stack hasn't changed - it has just moved from the data center to the cloud. For IT, this means faster deployments and the power to scale up as needed. IT admins will spend less time staging servers which means they'll have more time to focus on other areas of the business. We envisioned what this will look like here, but to sum up - your company's computer guy/gal will be less of a "geek" and more of a "facilitator."
Developers, Developers, Cloud App Developers
Ozzie Said:
"The third principle that I've been talking for several years now with people in the organization is one that targets developers, and it's one that I refer to as the trend toward small pieces loosely joined in how you build programs. When I talked about my first two principles, software that spans multiple devices and software that spans from the enterprise into the cloud, you might have gathered that the nature of software development is also being transformed in moving toward a world of software plus services...Software on the back end is also being transformed from being a single program running on an enterprise server that scales in a scale-up manner to programs that are spread out across hundreds or even thousands of PCs running in a cloud-based datacenter that appears like one datacenter to the programmer, but is actually spread across the world. So, what does this principle mean for Microsoft's business perspective? Well, many business ISVs and many VARs will be looking to move their applications and solutions to the cloud just like we have. For them, like us, this technology shift towards services represents a significant opportunity, a chance for them to deliver to their enterprise customers the power of choice within their own application or solution. And so Microsoft's opportunity in this space is perfectly aligned with that of our partners to provide them with the platforms and the tools to make this transition, leveraging our experience as well as our substantial economies of scale in embracing the cloud."
And later..
Question: "How do you convince the market and the customers that you're going to be moving into the cloud, that Microsoft should be the platform play versus a Google and/or an Amazon?"
RAY OZZIE: "I think, on that front, if we solve a problem for these folks, it will prove itself out in a positive way. Web developers -- you can just look out there right now -- are extremely pragmatic. They're very, very pragmatic. If something works for them and solves a problem, they're just going to use it. And, you know, the onus is on us to prove, to show through what we deliver, that it's very, very valuable. And, you know, brand will -- if there is a brand perception, for example, within the open-source community about Microsoft, they'll be a bit perplexed when they find out -- when they see that the best way to run what they're trying to do is on our infrastructure. And I think that will improve. That will improve brand perception in that realm."
Takeaway:
Obviously, the key to a good cloud strategy is getting software developers on board, so beyond just providing the cloud itself, this sounds like he's hinting at some sort of development tool (or tools) that will provide developers a way to build apps in the cloud. In order to compete with both Google and Amazon, the Microsoft cloud has to be better - that is, it has to be richer and more well-defined than what currently exists today. This could be tough. Says Ozzie, "Amazon has done a terrific job...I think we've all learned a lot from it."
Cloud Datacenters To Run It All
Ozzie Said:
"And, yes, the datacenters that we invest in...it's the same datacenters that host Search and our MSN apps and our Windows Live apps, Office Live apps. And this platform infrastructure is also...going out there. We do careful staged investments...as you're expanding, you have to have different projects in different phases...we have to have the footprint to be able to build at the right rate when the demand emerges. You don't want to overbuild too much in advance of the demand. But we're preparing for a fairly significant transformation."
Takeaway:
In other words, the Microsoft cloud isn't just about business apps and SLAs. Along with running Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, their same datacenters will run Live Search, Windows Live Services, MSN, Office Live, and more. "Significant transformation?" Was Microsoft really blindslided by the shift to cloud computing or have they been quietly ramping up for a massive shift of their business? ZDNet recently reported that Microsoft's corporate vice president of Global Foundation Services Debra Chrapaty is on record saying Microsoft is adding 10,000 new servers a month. Put that in perspective - Facebook is estimated to have 10,000 total.
Conclusion
Although we don't have all the pieces yet nor any sort of ship dates, what we can see here is that Microsoft does indeed have a cloud computing strategy and it's huge. They're not just moving their businesses services from the data center to the cloud - they're also providing cloud services for consumers, too. And then there is Live Mesh, their cloud computing platform that will sync apps, settings, and files. How does it all tie together? We don't have all the answers today, but it looks like it's going to be a big reveal when the time comes.
ShareRelated Entries
1 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4539
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Hi,
Any computer running pnrp can act as a seed server, it just needs to keep one name published at all times.
> The easiest way to keep a name published is to setup a Windows Internet Computer Name (WICN) on a machine running Windows Vista.
Is this possible for a machine running XP to act as a seed server ? If Yes, How ?
Thank you
It looks like the beginning of a big buzz...
This is bringing the MS effort into a clearer focus. The problem I see is the fence sitting that will likely occur for some markets. For example, Small Business Server 2008 and the Office Live technologies will be direct competitors in many ways. Development projects will also have some wait and see (to cloud or not to cloud). Most enterprises will see a much longer horizon to accepting these new cloud technologies, so this thing will be more fully developed before many Fortune 500's dive in with core apps.
Posted by: CS Techcast
|
July 28, 2008 10:06 AM
Yawn. More walled gardens. More "locking" users to their inferior 1990s technology. More seat licenses enforcement through threat of courtroom litigation.
So many smart people on the pay roll, but all told to tow the party line and just ignore the reality of 2008. Amazon's cloud services have no operating system or database requirements, but Redmond seems to be playing the part of the "hear no evil, see no evil..." monkeys by forcing Windows Server and SQL Server down any potential user's throat.
I expect PDC this year to be major. As in, as major as when they first announced .NET. It better be. Better be.
Posted by: Yuvi
|
July 28, 2008 10:25 AM
@Todd While I understand that you are obviously not a fan, I'm curious as to how you think Amazon competes with Windows Server? (SQL Server, OK...but Server?) Windows Server runs Active Directory - the alternative to that is going with an Open Source installation of some sort - not Amazon Web Services. If you need to manage all of your network resources, assign administrative policies, and essentially run a network, you go Microsoft or you go Unix/Linux. You don't go Amazon...I'm confused...
@Sarah
I think the idea that Amazon Web Services competing against the Server space banks on the idea that we will soon see a shift to thin-client apps. If this does happen authentication and authorization based services (the heart of AD) will turn to a cloud service infrastructure (decentralization, resiliency, cost of operation, support, etc). If this does happen (and even Microsoft is preparing for this to some degree by offering cloud service counterparts for all products), services such as Amazon Web Services would be Microsoft's biggest threat (along with the mythical Google OS, etc).
Microsoft has been saying this shift will never happen completely while the Googlers are banking their success on it.
Sweet, you'll soon be able to sync all your viruses between multiple devices. Sounds awesome!
Seriously though, it does sound ambitious. Only problem (as previously mentioned) is the lock-in factor.
For web developers this is going to be a huge sticking point. Developers aren't even keen on Google's app engine because of its proprietary nature. And Google is absolutely adored by the developer community. Take a proprietary stack and add Microsoft's reputation and you've got two great reasons for staying the heck away.
Amazon plus a custom Linux distro of your choosing is by far the most open (and future proof) way to develop web apps.
Great Post Sarah. it truly is.
Controversial because very few can see the big picture of this at the moment.
It is all about Scale in Global Terms.
I have no words to say, it's rock indeed
http://www.bangbull.com/details/23800-BE4/Amazing_natural_girl
Nice article.
Everyone is jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon. The shift to cloud computing is becoming more relevant simply because of the sheer number of new applications and how these new applications interact together and on the internet. Microsoft is simply jumping on the wagon earlier this time around.
@Todd has a point. The point is that Microsoft has always wanted everyone to be all Microsoft. Interoperability is not in Microsoft's vocabulary. They have paid Novell to do their interoperability for them. Both Google (today) and Microsoft have a "walled garden" effect. Google by virtue of forcing vendors to do it "their way and Microsoft by virtue of simply not working with others.
However open source is disrupting both Google and Microsoft. Look at Amazon's ECS. What is the underlying OS - open source. Look at the up and coming cloud vendors - all open source. Open source is the disrupting force and open source will continue to disrupt. Microsoft is starting to see the light with the recent patch submission and recent cash infusion to Apache.
Microsoft's "cloud" is not a cloud. Cloud computing eliminates the OS layer and moves the "platform" up the stack. VMWare sees this and is trying to commodotize the hypervisor quickly. No application exists today that runs in a true "cloud" environment that runs on the Microsoft OS or Microsoft hypervisor. Time will tell, but open source has already prevailed in this space.
@John Pugh: Have you seen GoGrid? They are an Amazon EC2 competitor -- but they're offering both Windows Server and Linux images.
Have you seen Microsoft's BizTalk.Net offerings like Connectivity Services and Workflow Services?
How about SQL Server Data Services?
These are all cloud offerings. And Microsoft will continue to add to their cloud offerings (read about project Zurich and Red Dog), and so will partners (it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Amazon begin to compete against GoGrid by offering Windows images).
You say that cloud "eliminates the OS." But then you point out that EC2 runs Linux. I don't get it.
But I agree to a point that Google and Microsoft are trying to create walled gardens -- they want your code running on their platforms.
I'm sure they'll be very successful if they can get it all to mesh.
I don't keep up with cloud computing as much as some but reading through the posts, two things come to mind:
First - Is Microsoft more focused on the dweeb that lives on Doritos and Jolt Cola writing a cutesy little widget for some social networking site or the corporation that spends tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on IT supporting 150,000 employees spread around the world? Do you think said employer is more likely to move to a Microsoft cloud or a Google cloud given the millions they've invested in software, experience and training all under the little red, yellow, blue and green flag?
Second - have you heard a colloquialism that goes something like "any computing problem can be solved with one more level of abstraction" Is that what Microsoft is building, the level of abstraction that sits over the entire freaking internet and makes it look sorta like a destop PC to the developer? When you're saving a Word file, do you give much thought to the track, sector and offset on the harddrive the file is written to? Is that the level of abstraction Ozzie's going for? Write an app and run with as much thought to how that actually happens as you give to saving a file to disk?
Outside of GoGrid, are there any other cloud service providers that offer virtual windows resources, preferrably 64bit (GoGrid offers 32bit only)? We're an app developer that requires windows resources.
I wish MSFT would get it together and make this offering. We could use it NOW
@Peter
I think Microsoft is one step ahead of you :-).
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/evaluation/default.mspx