Microsoft has provided more insight into the upgrades of Windows Azure, which Redmond claims makes it an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) as well as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Developers, system administrators and other IT professionals were given a deep dive into Azure’s new services via a Web cast the afternoon of 7 June that also presented a discussion on how Microsoft is providing Linux operating system support in Azure alongside Windows within the Azure cloud environment.
Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Windows Azure application platform, demonstrated how new virtual machines could be created using a simple Wizard process and deployed on any server available. He described the Azure portal experience as “a really powerful and flexible way to do it.”
“There’s full support directly in the portal for creating any number of virtual machines using images we provide. Just like on a Windows machine, I can configure this Linux-based VM, capture it as a reusable image, then basically create any new number of VMs based on that and have everything pre-installed when I create it,” Guthrie said.
Besides the latest Windows Server versions supported in Azure, including the Server 2012 release candidate, Microsoft identified these Linux OSes that will also be supported: OpenSUSE 12.1, CentOS-6.2, Ubuntu 12.04 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, SP2.
Among the new Azure services coming from Microsoft are the following:
Microsoft is partnering with a number of organisations, many of them representing various Linux distributions, to support the new Azure IaaS offering. Another partner, RightScale, a cloud management service provider, explained during the Web cast how it will integrate with Azure.
“Microsoft clearly knows how to run mobile, cloud-scale infrastructure with a high degree of operational excellence,” said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale. “This is a cloud that we and our customers can count on.”
Crandell also said the integration of IaaS with PaaS “is really an industry first and it provides an entire environment for the development and deployment of apps that we think is going to be very powerful.”
He also noted that Azure’s support of Linux “is a clear commitment by Microsoft to openness.”
Microsoft originally considered open source Linux to be an interloper, unfairly undercutting Microsoft’s proprietary software model. But in more recent years, Microsoft has come to see open source as a permanent fixture in the tech industry and has enabled greater interoperability with open source and Windows software. Microsoft offered interoperability with SUSE Linux at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco 21 May.
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