It is no secret to anyone how popular he is Hadoop as platform for Big Data. Among its features we have that it only runs under the Linux operating system. However, in this month of October, Microsoft has launched Azure HDInsight, the platform of Big Data in the Microsoft Cloud using Hadoop, that is Linux!
For many this does not seem like great news, however we must go back to 2008, when Microsoft launched Windows Azure, referring to this service as Windows in the Cloud, allowing developers to make applications of Windows that will run in Microsoft Data Centers. In other words, it was presented as a PaaS (Platform as a Service) service.
In recent years we haven't heard much of the term Windows Azure, now they refer to Microsoft Azure clearly leaving the PaaS service plans aside and focusing on an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) scheme.
Despite the opinions of many, Microsoft has expressed its interest (and even "love") for Linux and other technologies from the Open Source community such as Docker. Even publicly acknowledging that more than 20% of its servers use Linux.
We must recognize that since the arrival of the third CEO, Satya Nadella, Microsoft has had an important turn in its attitude towards the Open Source community. Under the premise for Azure of be the cloud support par excellence, without discriminating the tastes or needs of the client, The possibility of using Linux has been incorporated into most of its services, from Virtualization to Big Data platforms.
These initiatives have managed to position Microsoft at the competitive level of platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google. Since each of these providers manages the Cloud with different approaches, each client must consider the strengths of each one of them for their choice, so restricting Azure only to Windows would have made it impossible for Microsoft to compete with these rivals.
Other Initiatives:
Microsoft's efforts to embrace new horizons do not end here.
The launch of Office applications on the Android and iOS mobile platforms, even before their own mobile operating system, has been removing the old barriers that tied everything to the products of the same supplier.
Additionally, the release of .NET has allowed the development of applications based on this framework in Linux and OSX operating systems. Similarly, they have provided free and multiplatform tools (including Linux) for development in .NET, as is the case of Visual Studio Code. Not counting a free (and quite capable) version of its acclaimed Visual Studio Community 2015 development environment.
Perhaps the big tech companies have understood the great benefits of free software? Could there be other hidden intentions? Despite radical policy changes at Microsoft, will Open Source enthusiasts continue to mistrust this company?
Regardless of the answers to those questions, we must acknowledge the contribution made by Microsoft and continue to encourage more companies to join this cause.
Good idea, although it was already seen to come with the support of GNU / Linux distros in Hyper-V, and vice versa.