[ALUG] Microsoft has built a Linux OS and it makes perfect sense

[Andreas Tauscher]

To clarify what Microsoft is really doing with Linux. Because the term
distribution is not really correct in this case or wrong expectations
are brought to this.

Who was expecting now something like Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSuSE: Sorry.
This system is created for a very specific purpose.

They are working on a system called ACS - Azure Cloud Switch. And it is
based on Linux.
The name is already telling what this is. It is a software for switches
and routers. And the word cloud tells this switches and routers are virtual.

Actual on a management capable switch is running a software, a operating
system and most of the features are usable only with switches from the
same supplier.
A Cisco switch can talk only to another Cisco, a HP only to HP .......
And changes in the network usual need also changes in routing tables and
even changes in the wiring.

SND now separates the software from the hardware.
The result is something like a GDI printer. The printer is reduced to
the absolute minimum: A interface and the print unit. The PC is doing
what normally the controller board is doing: Rendering the pages an
sending to the print unit.
The switch is here also reduced to the absolute minimum hardware and
intelligence and getting its commands over the Swich Abstraction
Interface SAI from a controller.
The controller software is running on a separate device or server and
can control hundreds or thousands of switches. From different manufacturers.

A SDN has plenty of advantages. I get independent form a physical port
or connection. For example a international company: A developer has
usual plugged his laptop with a cable in the office in Munich. Now he is
travelling to the office in New York. And the whole time he is still
connected to the network in the Munich office like he would sit there at
his desk. It is working completely transparent nobody has to change
anything no routing to change, no patch field has to be touched. The
network controller is re-routing everything as needed. In New York he
will still have the same IP address like in Munich.
Or for a cloud supplier: A SDN makes it easier to move resources even
between data centres.
If more ports are needed: You add them simply. virtual ports at zero
costs, physical ports on a much lower price than you pay per port on a
"real" switch.

SDN is a open source development and Linux is here years ahead. Open
vSwitch is a core part for a SDN and in the kernel since at least 2009.
Microsoft would have to start from scratch.
So why not taking the existing Linux implementation and extending it
with some special features Azure offers/needs?

Microsoft is doing exact the same like Facebook or Google: They build
servers and switches meeting exact their needs. And when all the bolts
and nuts are already available and the existing open source
implementations are working stable why spending years of development and
millions of $ in something others have already implemented better than I
can as a newbie?

Time to market is the only interesting point. If they have to use Linux
to get a service rolled out before or together with competitors they
will use it instead coming years later with a own solution when all the
competitors are already well established. Beside the fact that the
investment was higher than what the competitor had to invest.
Years later it will be hard to make clients moving and paying a higher
price.

Microsoft becoming simply more pragmatic and is reinventing it selves as
a service provider.

Andreas

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