Amazon Web Services – 🅰nthony on 🅰zure

Compatibility with existing infrastructure: Before migrating to Azure, it is important to ensure that your existing infrastructure and applications are compatible with the Azure platform. This includes checking the operating systems, databases, and other software that your applications rely on to ensure that they are supported by Azure.
Cost: Migrating to Azure can help to reduce costs in some cases, but it is important to carefully consider the costs associated with using Azure, including the cost of storage, compute resources, and networking. It is also important to consider any costs associated with migrating your existing applications and data to Azure.
Data migration: Migrating to Azure involves moving your data from your current infrastructure to Azure storage. It is important to carefully plan this migration to ensure that your data is moved efficiently and securely, and to minimize any downtime or disruption to your business.
Network connectivity: Azure requires a reliable and high-speed network connection to function effectively. It is important to ensure that your current network infrastructure is capable of supporting Azure, and to consider the costs and potential challenges of upgrading your network if necessary.
Security: Azure includes a range of security features and services, but it is important to carefully consider the security implications of migrating to the cloud. This includes ensuring that your data is secure both in transit and at rest, and that you have the necessary controls in place to prevent unauthorized access to your data. A not so fun fact, lack of governance planning is the #1 reason cloud project fail.
Compliance: If your organization is subject to industry regulations or other compliance requirements, it is important to ensure that Azure meets these requirements and that you have the necessary controls in place to maintain compliance.
Integration with existing systems: Azure can be integrated with a wide range of existing systems and applications, but it is important to carefully consider how your current systems will integrate with Azure, and to plan for any necessary changes or upgrades.
Scalability: Azure is designed to be highly scalable, but it is important to carefully consider your current and future scalability needs to ensure that you are using the appropriate resources and configurations.
Support: Azure includes a range of support options, including online documentation, community forums, and paid support plans. It is important to consider what level of support you will need, and to choose the appropriate plan to meet your needs.
Training and resources: Migrating to Azure may require training for your team, as well as the development of new processes and procedures. It is important to consider the resources that will be required to support this transition, and to plan for any necessary training or other support.

Number 10 should not be overlooked and I cannot stress it enough. Cloud is a paradigm shift in thinking; it is not just virtual infrastructure hosted by Microsoft. The way IT thinks must change when it comes to cloud if you are to be successful in the cloud.

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Some basics if you are new to containers. Applications run inside containers. Containers believe they are running on an independent operating system but in fact they are running in isolated partitions sharing a single operating system while other containers are also running other applications using the same operating system. Where in traditional hypervisor virtualization a server will run several virtualized operating systems and applications. Remember ESX?

Here is a popular graphic explaining the difference between the two types of virtualization. The top of the graphic shows the hypervisor style of virtualizing and operating system an application while the lower portion shows a single operating system using Docker container software to virtualize the operating system while several instances use that one virtualized operating system.

Who cares?

Some companies think this is the future of virtualization, dismissing the traditional hypervisor model of virtulization as an archaic technology like the CD-ROM, good in its day but no longer needed. “Everything at Google runs in a container” according to Google. Their entire cloud infrastructure is running on containers. Also using another application to dynamically cluster containers known as Kubernetes. https://developers.google.com/compute/docs/containers The most popular container software today is known as Docker, like the formerly popular OG pleated pants, still worn by some, minus the ess.

Microsoft’s Approach

How has Microsoft and VMware reacted to this new (not really) virtualization technology? Microsoft to its credit has worked to embrace the technology by allowing customers to use it within Microsoft Azure. In fact I am going to quote their explanation of Docker and Kubernetes because they do such a nice job of explaining them. “Docker is an open-source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a portable, self-sufficient container that will run almost anywhere. Kubernetes is an open source cluster management tool, a declarative technology supporting orchestration and scheduling of Docker containers.” Here is what they have actually implemented of the two technologies into Azure.

The key features we have implemented are documented in the Kubernetes project and can be summarized as:

Build a container and publish it to Azure Storage
Deploy an Azure cluster using container images from Azure Storage or the Docker Hub
Configure an Azure cluster
Update the Kubernetes application on an existing cluster
Tear down an Azure cluster

Keeping in mind that containers run on *nix, this is quite a departure from the traditional Microsoft. While adoption and continued development will demonstrate if Microsoft has really embraced the technology at this point it looks like they are living up to their announcement back in July where they stated they would support containers and were joining the opensource development project.

VMware’s Approach

VMware also announced their partnership with Google, Docker and Pivotal last week during VMworld. Their approach is slight different but also similar to Microsoft. The major difference in VMware’s approach is that they support containers on top of their hypervisor. While Microsoft’s approach is more inline with the spirit of how the technology was intended to be used. Based on what VMware has announced it seems more like they are taking the traditional defensive approach I would expected Microsoft to have taken in the past. I am not faulting VMware for this and I am sure they are making the best decisions regarding the technology that they feel is best for their vision of the company. Keep in mind that they have recently purchased Air-Watch and I believe that coupled with the fact that their parent company EMC (for now) is a storage company I believe they are planning to compete with AWS and Microsoft in the DaaS (Desktop as a Service) space.

I don’t think VMware is ready to compete with Microsoft in the DaaS space, they don’t have the same configmgr tools as Microsoft, they don’t own the operating system but they are getting there so it will be an interesting battle over the next decade.