Microsoft bins Azure Blockchain without explanation, gives users four months to move

Microsoft has announced the imminent death of its Azure Blockchain service. A support document dated May 10 delivered the news as follows: On September 10, 2021, Azure Blockchain will be retired. Please migrate ledger data from Azure Blockchain Service to an alternative offering based on your development status in production …

[Sampler]

How very cryptic...

I'll see myself out..

[b0llchit]

Re: How very cryptic...

They couldn't hash out the kinks while signed chains were being unprofitable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How very cryptic...

They discovered it took a bit of coin to keep in running.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Cut to the chase

None of this embracing and extending malarkey.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Not to worry

How many customers could they have had for a slow and expensive database anyway?

[cyberdemon]

Re: Not to worry

Plenty. But all of these would-be customers are locked-in with Oracle.

[trevorde]

Blockchain is the answer

It's just that no one figured out the question.

[Kane]

Re: Blockchain is the answer

"It's just that no one figured out the question."

I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.

- Deep Thought, HHGTTG, Douglas Adams

How about a cup of tea icon, El Reg?

[Version 1.0]

Re: Blockchain is the answer

"I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

Your post needs to get 42 upvotes.

[Anonymous Coward]

When my servers are in-house, it's only our own management that can unexpectedly cancel services.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from when your OS supplier stops supporting your OS, and your app vendor has long since gone bust or been sold/moved on and won't supply versions for a later OS. On prem/on cloud - you swap one set of problems for another set.

[Anonymous Coward]

But your own stuff doesn't stop working if you can go longer upgrade.

[Peter-Waterman1]

Unless its virus-ridden because you couldn't get security patches for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if it's not Windows to start with. Patch density on FreeBSD, for instance, is kinda low.

[Tomato42]

It's also quite low on VMS, and mostly for the same reasons.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Buyers should survey the market for the products they need?"

How many Windows users did that? They might have surveyed the market for PCs but weren't given a view of alternatives for the bundled OS.

[Pascal Monett]

Yeah but, for Joe User, there are no alternatives.

He wants to use Outlook, because everyone he knows uses Outlook. He wants to use Office, because everyone is talking about Word and Excel. He wants to play some games, because they're all the rage these days.

He doesn't know about Linux and, if he did, he couldn't go about installing it himself. If he did install Linux, he would have to learn a different mail program. He would have to install LibreOffice, and that's not Word. And he couldn't play many of the games that "everyone else" is playing anyway.

Now that Borkzilla is laser-focused on The Cloud (TM), and has finally started porting parts of its software empire to be Linux-compatible, we have a chance to see the day when Office will run natively on Linux and DirectX maybe as well.

That will be the day that will signal the start of Linux on the Desktop, because there will be a real alternative, ironically brought about by the same entity that has done its level best to keep Linux out of the desktop.

[Packet]

Oh you Linux zealot.

There is the Mac platform that has the answer for our Joe user - where he can use Outlook, if he so pleases, or not.

[stungebag]

I wonder just how many Joe Users actually install Outlook these days? Most use webmail, and I suspect that even includes many with personal M365 accounts.

[fredesmite2]

pimp service

" Microsoft’s document eventually recommends the Quorum Blockchain Service from ConsenSys as a very fine replacement because it uses the GoQuorum Ledger technology that Azure's Blockchain uses too. Unsurprisingly, Quorum is also right at home in Azure.

So even after Microsoft causes you considerable inconvenience, it still wants your cash."

[Gene Cash]

English?

"Evaluate the following alternatives based on your development status of being in production or evaluation."

And do the needful.

[Anonymous Coward]

First quantum, now blockchain

Best to stick to Azure's hardware, Office365 services and anything it runs that's open source, like Kubernetes or Postgres. Azure-native tech feels increasingly risky.

[philstubbington]

A much hyped solution, in search of a problem…

Like the black cat, in a dark room, that isn’t there.

[Robert Carnegie]

I wonder if it's related to stories about crypto currency and blockchain being denounced as un-green, Bitcoin generates more carbon dioxide than Australia going on fire or something.

Is that true-ish by the way, I can't tell. I don't think they said Australia, it's just a guess. Or is it the new government libel against cryptography and privacy for its data subjects.