As noted here at the very beginning of this year, while Linux becomes more firmly entrenched in businesses, and as cloud computing advances in general, Linux will become a huge part of cloud infrastructure. While Microsoft hasn't made a lot of direct statements on the topic, Mary Jo Foley, who usually has a good bead on the company's projects, has been steadily writing about Microsoft's intent to enable Linux on its Azure cloud platform. Now she's uncovered additional signs that these are the Redmond giant's plans, and the whole idea makes a lot of sense for Microsoft.
According to Foley in her original post:
"What does this mean? Customers who want to run Windows or Linux “durably” (i.e., without losing state) in VMs on Microsoft’s Azure platform-as-a-service platform will be able to do so...The new persistent VM support also will allow customers to run SQL Server or SharePoint Server in VMs, as well. And it will enable customers to more easily move existing apps to the Azure platform."
Now, Foley points out that Microsoft has a job advertised for a Senior Software Engineer with hardcore Linux credentials. The right candidate will "work directly with the Linux kernel community to develop Linux device drivers and kernel technology to support Linux on Microsoft platforms."
For some time now, Microsoft has moved from its stance of years ago, where it didn't make it easy to run Linux compatibly with its other tools, toward ensuring that Linux users can arrive on its platforms, and bring applications there. Without a doubt, the big businesses that Microsoft depends on, and is pitching Azure toward, want to be able to take advantage of both Windows and Linux. They don't want to be boxed in.
As we noted here, Microsoft is not only one of the top contributors to the Linux kernel, but virtualization at the server level is now easy and efficient enough that IT adminstrators are already running Linux and Windows together. Specifically, many of them want to run Linux alongside Windows Server and on Azure, and that means that the Linux kernel and Windows Server, and Microsoft's cloud platform, and SharePoint and more tools need to be able to play together nicely.
Microsoft has not been specific about its plans with Azure and Linux, but the latest job advertisement that the company has up makes clear that supporting Linux on Microsoft platforms is a primary goal in Redmond.
Tags: azure, cloud computing, linux, microsoft
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