Microsoft's New Killer App

http://jungleg.com/2009/11/17/microsoft-azure-is-the-new-outlook/

by Raphael • 17 years ago

147 65 17 years ago

bayareaguy2• 17 years ago

This sounds perfect for custom MediaWikis.

flooha3• 17 years ago

<shamelessplug>...until you have to install a lot of extensions, which you normally have to do manually. This is the problem Flooha solves. </shamelessplug>

bayareaguy2• 17 years ago

This looks very cool. Can your system deploy to Azure or other clouds?

I'm a heavy user of the DynamicPageList, SyntaxHighlight GeSHi, TeX Editor and Lua extensions and had never heard of Flooha before so I took a quick look. While it looks promising, I didn't see any of those extensions available :-(

Also if I select one of MediaWiki v1.14.0 or MediaWiki v1.15.1, choose "Browse Addons" and then follow the hint at the top of the page and click "By app version" and then finally press "filter and sort", I get an empty list. Do you have to actually do a build first?

CORRECTION: based on http://flooha.com/build/addon_details/3559 it does appear you support DynamicPageList. I must have overlooked that earlier.

smhinsey• 17 years ago

I've been following WPI for awhile, but I'm missing the actual connection to Azure here. From my perspective as someone who has been working in the Windows cloud ecosystem, Azure is more of a platform as a service than an infrastructure as a service play -- I'd love to hear how arbitrary apps a la WPI fit into that.

mbreese• 17 years ago

Agreed. I can't tell how Azure fits in here... It looks like this just installs the tools on your local machine (or I guess server). So, perhaps they are taking the next (perhaps logical) step and assuming that you can use this to install stuff on an Azure instance?

jungleg3• 17 years ago

As I said above, I'm not saying there is a connection now, but if MS plays it right, there could be a connection.

bhousel• 17 years ago

I dunno about killer app - but the Web Platform installer is pretty sweet. Glad to see it's finally coming out of beta.

Scott Hanselman blogged about web platform / web application installers about a year ago: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftWebApplicationInstall...

I haven't looked it at lately, it will be interesting to see how many of those apps they can integrate with Azure..

eam• 17 years ago

Sounds promising. I'll be sure to give it a try once I get the chance.

natch• 17 years ago

So, what's the catch, other than having to have annoying Microsoft naming conventions like ASP.NET show up in my field of vision?

mark_l_watson• 17 years ago

Interesting. Sort of like Heroku with "instant install", no admin. I don't touch .Net with a 10 foot pole (yeah, letting my M$crosoft biases show), but this does look cool.

steveklabnik2• 17 years ago

That's kinda what I thought. The "OMG MSFT THIS IS CRAZY!!!1" was a bit much.

It's good to see people compete with Heroku and Engine Yard (and for more things than Ruby, as much as I love it.)

sunchild• 17 years ago

When Engine Yard and Heroku offer this kind of service, all you hear about from corporate IT is vulnerabilities in the VM layer and lack of security in the "cloud". But when Microsoft offers it, it's the next big thing. So sad.

leej• 17 years ago

it is not just .net tech anymore. now with php, ruby and most weird JAVA! but i have two reserves how is library support for dynamic languages and how does overall performance compare to the ec2+s3.

hvasishth• 17 years ago

I have tried Azure and I have to say it is super cool

timtadh3• 17 years ago

So my graduate databases class recently took a look at several of these cloud computing environments, and Microsoft offering is clearly compelling both from an tool integration stand point and from the technical side.

For instance Microsoft's incremental innovation in their S3 like utility, called Simple Data Storage (SDS), is that SDS provides guarantees for Durability and Consistency, while Amazon really only guarantees Durability. There has been some work on implementing idempotent logs on top of S3, and SQS to provide similar guarantees but this is third party academic work see http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1376616.1376645 for an introduction.

While at first glance Microsofts innovation is an improvement however, there is the question of how SDS performs at scale. Providing consistency for such a system will incur some amount of overhead. Has anyone here used SDS to serve larges amount of data with frequent updates? I would be interested to know how it compares with S3.

teej• 17 years ago

I appreciate the call for a comparison, but I think Microsoft's solution and Amazon's solution fit way different needs. The biggest S3 usages I have seen in production environments have been for large asset hosting on websites, not data storage for backends. We use S3 because it's dev friendly, cheap enough, and doesn't require talking to a sales person at Akamai.

j_b_f• 17 years ago

I think he might mean "SimpleDB" where he says S3 and "SQL Azure" where he says SDS.

sriramk2• 17 years ago

I work for Windows Azure. I think the right equivalent to S3 is Windows Azure blob storage. I'm really not sure what you're refering to by SDS. SDS used to refer to an older version of what is now called SQL Azure but the technology there has been changed dramatically.

timtadh3• 17 years ago

You are probably right. We reviewed this paper about a month ago so i probably mixed up the names.

ordinaryman• 17 years ago

After seeing http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/developer.aspx, I feel sad that Google App Engine (GAE) still does not have a "click to install"

Currently, there are two options for application developers in GAE

1. The code needs to handle segmentation of customer data based on login and also arrive at billing strategy for the resource usage.

2. Ask customers to sign up for GAE, create an application and invite the developer; after which, the developer can manually deploy the application. Code need not have segmentation logic and resources can be purchased directly from Google.

Though my application http://crm.ifreetools.com supports both options, it could be better if there was a marketplace allowing a "click to install", rather than the current marketplace which focuses on services.. http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/

..and a GAE application gallery acting as just a directory... http://appgallery.appspot.com/results?q=crm

rbanffy2• 17 years ago

A GAE application marketplace would be a great idea.

Is anyone from Google googling this?

Tichy2• 17 years ago

Yeah, I was really expecting GAE to turn into this. But it would be a first of Google bringing a side project to it's full potential, I guess.

nearestneighbor• 17 years ago

MS has some interesting technologies, like F# & .NET, but I wonder if people trust MS to do the right thing on the server? (One braindead misfeature can screw up everything)

dagw• 17 years ago

Given that Microsoft has anywhere between 25-45% market share (depending on where you get your numbers) on servers obviously someone is trusting them. And it's not like the Unix world hasn't had its share of "braindead misfeatures" over the years.

jlees2• 17 years ago

An idiotproof, point and click cloud solution is definitely what's needed for cloud to go mainstream (i.e. Joe User thinks nothing of putting his wordpress blog on the cloud). I hadn't really seen this coming from Microsoft, but kudos to them if they get it right. AWS, GAE etc are still all too hard just to push stuff out - I've tried explaining them to tech-savvy laypeople and had zero luck so far.

patio11• 17 years ago

Joe User can already get 100% of the benefits of "the cloud" (whatever that means) by getting joeuser.wordpress.com . I don't see there being much upside for anyone whose relationship with their computer is similar to their relationship with their toaster.

What I do see happening is Microsoft doing what they usually do: figure out a way how to become the standard platform for smaller software companies writing niche software for businesses. There are an awful lot of businesses out there who have essentially infinite technology needs and very little capacity to absorb it. Previously, Microsoft said "Here's a windows computer. Run this installer which cost you $50 from some company using our products. Bam, you now have a need filled without learning how to program yourself."

In the future, I expect it sounds like "Hey, you've already got a computer. Cool. Click once and pay our vendor $50, and BAM we'll give you a website with X business software installed on it. You don't have to learn anything about programming or system administration."

Now personally, having done downloadable software and web apps, I would prefer to have users pay me directly for access to my web app rather than having them host a copy locally. However, that won't fly for all businesses, and if Microsoft totally took all the technology pain out of it for them and reduced barriers to purchase by getting payments totally right, well heck, I'd be happy to sell hosted apps.

(Particularly hosted apps which you have to pay for every month or MS will turn off your access for me.)

Tichy2• 17 years ago

One problem with joeuser.wordpress.com is the price, though. At least if you want your own domains, most services seem to cost at least 10$/month (for example also GitHub, Issue Tracker, email?, storage > 2GB, ...). Using an individual provider for each service one might need quickly gets expensive. Atm it would be cheaper to deploy a single vServer with all the required apps.

No idea how much Azure & Co will cost, though.

nomoresecrets• 17 years ago

"I hadn't really seen this coming from Microsoft"

Not even when they first announced it at PDC2008 a year ago?

colinplamondon• 17 years ago

They had about eight and a half layers of marketing bullshit during the presentation and on the website- if you squinted real hard while hopping up and down on one foot with a tin foil hat in correct alignment, it looked like something resembling a good solution to a real problem.

Now more information is coming out in an accessible way about what Azure actually is, no hat alignment necessary.

jlees2• 17 years ago

People announce stuff relating to technologies I don't use at conventions I don't go to all the time. A quick google suggests that it was more the concept of Azure that was announced, not its point-and-click accessibility (the WebPI). Even if I'm wrong on that, once again HN has confused me saying "I didn't..." with "Nobody did...". Sigh.

ivenkys2• 17 years ago

I am sorry i don't get it , how can a new "Killer App" be Windows only ? The installer only works on Windows , what happens to the rest of us.

rbanffy2• 17 years ago

According to Microsoft, there is no rest of us. At least, there won't be for long.

I'll flag the article as it looks an awful lot like Microsoft astroturfing. I suggest you do the same.

yxhuvud• 17 years ago

Lets see, their previous killer apps also either required Windows, or WAS Windows. I don't really see how being platform specific affects ability to be a killer app.

Obviously depending on how a "killer app" is defined.

ivenkys2• 17 years ago

Platform specific does effect the ability to be a "killer app".

Ms Windows being a killer app was in a completely different time period. Any app that has to have game changing ability has to be cross-platform or perhaps run on the web. Anything else and its not a "killer app". It might get the bills paid and be profitable but "killer app" it ain't.

ErrantX• 17 years ago

We sell some ASP.NET (dont get me started) software and this was a god send when it appeared a little while ago. Before our setup procedure (we usually let clients do it themselves due to them being paranoid about letting people on their networks) was just complicated enough to require a phone walkthrough. This makes it a breeze. Click XYZ, then install. Install our app. Slight cfg tweaks. Win.

sriramk2• 17 years ago

I work for Windows Azure. I'm going to try hard to not make this into a marketing thing. I want to clarify a couple of things from the blog post

- The web platform installer is really quite distinct from Windows Azure. The WebPI is a nice installer which gets all the right SDK+ tools installed to get you up and running with MSFT's web dev stack Windows Azure can run any code that runs on Windows Server (with caveats) and it just so happens that the webpi is a nice way to get something running.

- Windows Azure isnt really MSFT-stack specific (.NET/IIS) though that works real well. There was a bunch of content at PDC this year on how to run MySQL/memcached/php/python/RoR/whatever. Matt Mullenweg did a keynote demo running Wordpress on Azure for example.

- The blog post 'Microsoft is taking applications but in reality, you can just go and sign up and get a token in a very, very short time. After January, the platform billing kicks in so anyone can sign up anytime.

Locke16892• 17 years ago

Interesting -- assuming that it's a true cloud compute environment (mostly application and language agnostic), is there a reason why the "installer" is Windows only? Is there a way to install and configure a compute node without using Windows?

bad_user• 17 years ago

My impression is that WebPI is for developers ... it installs on your computer the stuff you need for developing / running your application, with the bonus that you can also quickly install a prepackaged web app like Drupal.

I'm sure it wouldn't make any sense to make it available for Linux / Mac OS X since it's a Windows complement.

The problem here is that the TFA is wrong ... Microsoft hasn't released an "iTunes Store for Web Apps". It's just a convenient way to get your Windows Server up and running, or am I missing something?

jungleg3• 17 years ago

I want to clarify (and I have edited the post some) that this is all a forward-looking article. I am not saying that the WebPI is already working with Azure; but that knowing how Microsoft is a technology-leveler of sorts (specially for the enterprise) I could see the WebPI evolving into a point-and-click app installer once Azure is deployed, allowing developers to write packages that are cloud-aware to be listed on the apps gallery.

JasonM80• 17 years ago

Thanks a lot for chiming in and clarifying this.

Azure not being MSFT-stack specific is an interesting move. It certainly will open the platform up to many more applications than otherwise.

As for getting tokens, I found that it actually takes a lot longer than “a very, very short time.” For me, it was about just over a week and some other people have mentioned waiting much longer. Is there a way to speed up the process or at least get a realistic time estimate for a particular case? Thanks!

(I am contracted by M80, working with them and Microsoft to promote Windows Azure)

flooha3• 17 years ago

I have an interesting perspective on this since my startup, flooha.com is extremely similar, but actually better in some ways IMHO.

First of all, AFAIK, the web platform installer just sets up your PC to be a web server (IIS, mysql, etc...), then installs a default setup for the application you chose to install. So, you can play with it on your local PC, but it is not a public website unless your PC is your web server. So, if you don't have at least a VPS, you cannot use this to create your website. The blogger has it wrong when he says you can install on azure.

Flooha does exactly the same thing, except on a real, public facing web server. You can use it immediately on a free subdomain like username.flooha.com (on an EC2 instance) or you can sign up for hosting and use it to install software on your web hosting account (a dedicated server). There are already other apps that do exactly the same thing like Fantastico, Simple Scripts, Installatron, etc... Nothing new or revolutionary there. We will soon implement the ability to auto-install on any cPanel or Plesk server and the ability for developers to upload their PHP and Rails apps.

It's not clear from the MS web site whether you can install these web apps "in the cloud" (on azure?) or not. Even if you can, do you still get all of the other features of a traditional web host like a control panel, ssh, email, backups, cron jobs, forwarders, statistics, file manager, etc...? If you can install to the cloud, obviously the auto-scaling aspect is great even though most website will never need it.

Flooha's unique service is the ability to auto-install addons. Apps like WordPress now have their own addon (plugin) installer, but many apps, especially new ones, do not. Also, addons that are not in the WP repository are not available for auto-install. This is the gap that Flooha fills, in addition to auto-install of apps, 1-click backups to S3, 1-click restores, private addons and more. If you've ever worked with an app like osCommerce or MediaWiki, you'll know that installing addons is a real pain.

I'll admit to being jealous of MS's army of people working on this as well as their visually pleasing website, but I'm not particularly impressed by the service. I'm curious if sriramk or someone else more familiar with the web platform installer can give more insight on the service and rebutt some of my comments.

If people are really that impressed, I think I need to increase my marketing budget.

jacquesm• 17 years ago

Flooha is cool & useful stuf people, go check it out!

brown9-2• 17 years ago

What in the world does this have to do with Outlook?

gvb2• 17 years ago

Nothing.

It is just an analogy. According to the article, what Outlook is for Microsoft's application suite, Microsoft's Azure (or web platform installer per another comment) will be for cloud computing.

bumblebird2• 17 years ago

Outlook is to most people the most irritating broken non-functional idiotic piece of rubbish ever to grace their computer. So I think I'll give Azure/whatever a miss.

jungleg3• 17 years ago

Outlook is the most used enterprise application used written by Microsoft. Azure could potentially be the next Outlook, in terms of adoption and usage (and could be the next cash cow for MS).

erikstarck• 17 years ago

The App Store model extends to just about everything and everywhere. Is this what web 3.0 will be all about? An internet of many walled gardens? If so, is it really that bad?

stcredzero• 17 years ago

Interoperability will suffer! Interoperability and open standards are two of the lynchpins of the Internet.

Ultimately, if a large group of users keeps to the interoperable philosophy, the large walled gardens will fall. (Witness AOL.)

irrelative• 17 years ago

"Basically Windows has introduced point-and-click cloud computing for the masses and it’s doing it in a way that resembles the iPhone application directory but for web applications."

Wow, buzzword overload!

wastedbrains• 17 years ago

Amazon AWS really should have a 'app store' of pre configured EC2s with wordpress, drupal, etc.

Online interface boots the EC2, makes sure it loaded, and links you to the admin interface, links to backedup s3 dumps, etc

wmf• 17 years ago

http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/kbcategory.js...

http://www.jumpbox.com/go/virtualization

bediger• 17 years ago

This smells like an MSFT PR hit. I bet this goes the way of ".NET" or "HailStorm" or some other all-encompassing, vague-enough-to-impress-corporate-types acronym-laden "vision".

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