Microsoft hikes cost of licensing its software on rival public clouds, introduces Azure 'Dedicated' Hosts Microsoft has introduced a preview of Azure Dedicated Host, which provides a physical server hosted on Azure and not shared with other customers. Alongside this new service, the company has made licensing changes that will make Microsoft software more expensive for some customers of AWS, Google and Alibaba. Although an Azure …
I should have worded it as "some" really but what I'm getting at is that to some driven by money the whole idea that people create and maintain open source without direct payment (I know there some avenues where payment is received or they do it as part of their jobs) is somehow impossible.
Sadly this is the case. I've had a battle for over a year to try and convince the corporate 'cyber security' team that Ubuntu Linux *is* a supported OS and is not a 'critical' security risk just because it's free.
The irony is that most of these big corporations offering premium support at eye-watering prices usual seem to offer a very poor support service when you actually call them for anything :-/
It's a security risk *for your company* if your sys admin don't know how to / can't manage it. They also can't trust you to do so, it's them on the line if anything happens, not the user.
I suspect that's what they mean.
You'd get told RHEL or bugger off here too. :)
As a sysadmin if you let people pick an OS, you end up with all of them in use, with the expectation to support them when things break.
It's all fine and dandy having "cover your arse" emails, but when half of dev (or whatever) is sat not working, guess who is made to fix it? Hint: Not the user who insisted on ubuntu, or chromium, or Mac OS etc when you're a windows shop or a RHEL shop or whatever,
Management will never accept open source/free(excluding support) because they are driven by COSTS.
A certain type, management or not often distrust free software on the assumption that if it's free, it can't be any good.
I've never seen the same applied to 'beer'.
Damn, these licensing terms are confusing and kinda self-defeating. It's strange to see Microsoft actively fighting itself like this. If you were hosting a .NET Core web application on EC2 on Windows Servers, this is exactly what would make you switch to using (cheaper) Linux servers. Microsoft really needs to learn to separate lines of business or they're going to drive away many customers.
you also need to pay someone else to run someone elses software on someone elses computer.
You already have to do this, just that the someone else you also need to pay has decided their slice of the action isn't big enough, namely they are missing out on all the associated revenues that would arise if you were to use Azure.
It's strange to see Microsoft actively fighting itself like this
I must be older than you...
I can, however, see a kind of logic in this: the future of Windows may largely be as a virtual desktop, in which case there's a strong reason to monopolise the future revenue. Microsoft might well also be relatively keen not to have to support Windows Server on bare metal and third-party virtual servers and be happy to lose that part of the business to Linux if it can offer a Windows server environment customised for its own cloud infrastructure which might deliver better margins (and more lock-in).
"Microsoft might well also be relatively keen not to have to support Windows Server on bare metal and third-party virtual servers"
Would another way of phrasing this be "Microsoft's traditional customer base"? I mean prior to Azure this covered everyone.
Everyone was worried about cloud lock in, but MS are really doubling down on Azure.
So now Windows prefers to run on m$ servers? Didn't I hear something along those lines a while back?
I don't think it goes down the same way this time. The competition is MUCH stronger, the market MUCH more sophisticated.
They would do better (a lot better) to just get the fundamentals of security & reliability so they can actually compete.
Honestly, I'm more surprised that you're surprised.
Lock in, then elevate costs - that's been Microsoft's modus operandi for decades now. The only question is only ever when, the if part is pretty much a given.
Did you really, really think Microsoft was somehow "changing" into something more benign? LOL.
I notice Oracle is not on the list.
All affected people (including on Azure) over to Oracle Cloud.
When that is added then over to Rackspace's Cloud then to...then to..all the way to Dave's Cloud aka Billy Bob's Cloud...aka...keep changing the name/owner every week!
"Well,shucks...sure we can move them there VM's to Suzie's Cloud for yer, yeeee-haw!"
Not that any of the smaller Cloud providers are cowboy's...perish the thought!
There are only 3 valid reasons for using "the cloud"
1) Web server if there is insufficient bandwidth available to company premises.
2) Short term peaks (under 3 months)
3) Keeping developers well away from live systems
For almost all other use cases, it will be cheaper to use own hardware. Try pricing the cost of a cloud service vs the cost of on site hardware before using any cloud service - you may be surprised at how few months it takes before the on site hardware is cheaper.
Totally agree, however when the powers that be have their strategy to move to the cloud, it's hard convincing them otherwise. They've read the whitepapers, swallowed the marketing and donned the free rose-coloured specs and come back with the usual "Ah, but it costs money to have a datacentre, power it, cool it, fire-protect it, secure it..." and my favourite "and it's OPEX not CAPEX so Financel love it...".
If someone was to point-out to Finance just how much we spend on cloud, to run a fraction of our services there, and then added how much more we'd be paying if we moved everything out and closed the datacentre, I suspect they may not be loving it quite so much.
I guess the main thing is at some level you are swapping capex for opex. A lot of accountants/companies like this. And okay you can do leasing deals on hardware, but often this is seen as borrowing on the companies books and even if can be tuned (financially) to be pure opex, you cannot turn up and down costs as easily as Cloud/SaaS.
Not saying this is right, but some companies run on thinking it's being better to own nothing. And probably think they don't need as many IT staff to run this.
Will cost more in the long run, but doesn't matter as they didn't get a big bill upfront and have to get that approved (maybe by the board).
I have heard the phrase "Cloud Shock", when an accountant wakes up and suddenly sees how much all these cloud things are costing. I have heard of cloud companies who suddenly find they are sending 25% of turnover to Amazon, as it was so easy to spin up things.
We are just in a new Cycle of Reincarnation, mainframe -> Client Server -> Cloud (mainframe again really) --Probably--> in house some things (when people start seeing the costs of all this)
"Windows Enterprise will no longer be permitted other than with Windows VDA (Virtual Desktop Access) E3 or E5. As a concession, affected customers "will have until October 1, 2020, to move their existing Windows Enterprise workloads off Listed Providers' dedicated hosted cloud services"."
So you can only run Windows Enterprise on Azure now and nowhere else. Surely, fucking surely that is a MASSIVE antitrust law waiting to happen again. Roll on another Microsoft vs United States case again.
Will it be like last time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE
The last time MS got an anti-trust suit, it was pretty much a joke that didn't do them any harm. Given the current administration's penchant for regulatory capture (look at the FCC - Ajit Pai is the epitome of regulatory capture), do you really think the DOJ is going to do anything of significance to MS?
They may growl a bit and even put on a show of some sort for the plebs, but nothing substantive will happen.
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