Beware the dazzle of Microsoft's Azure lure
Cloud clarity needed
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
When it comes to Microsoft's Azure Services Platform, it pays to be cautious.
Microsoft has joined IBM and others in trying to build its own version of what's beginning to look like a vast, mainframe-like computing and storage system in the sky.
In the case of Azure, you - the developer - will build your applications using the familiar Visual Studio, C#, Visual Studio, and ASP.NET that you'll then deploy to Azure.
Re-use existing Microsoft programming skills and technologies, never need to own another server, provision and spin up in relation to demand - that's the rhetoric that's been repeated during the last few months by Microsoft, and this week, it turned up at its VSLive and MSDN Developer conferences in San Francisco.
Yet it was clear people attending the shows struggled to come to grips with what Microsoft is offering. Even those from Microsoft and partners trying to evangelize or explain Azure couldn't completely answer some big questions, either because Microsoft hasn't got the answers or it's not sharing them.
Among the questions:
- Just how big a system will you be able to spin up and provision on Azure, and how quickly?
- What's to prevent Microsoft from "stealing" your ideas?
- Is the service going to be available from Microsoft only, or will Azure also be available through partners?
- Will you be able to analyze the performance of your application, and tell whether its Azure or your own application that's at fault if there's a problem?
- Does Azure come with a relational database?
Some of these answers will depend on the sheer capacity Microsoft puts in place and how it backs these up with service level agreements (SLAs).
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COMMENTS
@John
You forgot point E : any version after #3 is on an irreversible trend of bloat and cruft that will render the product more and more unusable and full of complex vulnerabilities that will be utter bliss for all the skript kiddies and malware authors.
@John
Can't argue with a and b.
I can argue with c though. They only listen to their customers when it suits them, or when to do otherwise will significantly affect their earnings. The problem is that they are too big and are controlled too much by one sector of the business which often leads them into strife. While they have come up with good things over the years, the whole business is geared towards the domination of the market at whatever cost.
As for d, the usual way of putting this, as has been said over so many years, is "Never touch a Microsoft product until the first service pack comes out".
The Truth Will Out
All of us who have used Microsoft development tools for many years know that:
a) There is always a lot of hype
b) Version 1 usually leaves a lot to be desired
c) The listen to their customers and adapt well
d) Version 3 is usually great and significantly better than what competitors offer and it is usually fairly (as defined by the market) priced
People will always bash whomever is on top. Now it is MS. Someday it might be someone else. Someone telling me constantly that the sun rises in the west does not change what I know to be true.
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