back to article Microsoft's Service Fabric for Linux hits public preview

Microsoft's Service Fabric for Linux, an application platform designed for cloud-hosted microservices, will be released for public preview on September 26, 2016, at the company's Ignite event in Atlanta. Microsoft Microsoft's Service Fabric is an application platform for microservices The purpose of Service Fabric is to …

  1. slack
    Linux

    Anybody want to translate the MS market-speak article into English?

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      My reading is that there's a new VB runtime in town (or its moral equivalent). This one has been "ported" to Linux, where ported means "completely incompatible implementation of the same original idea".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Anybody want to translate the MS market-speak article into English?

      You're now allowed to use Linux as a Microsoft house, as long as you pay the Microsoft tithe. Services are now entering the "extend" phase whilst maintaining their lock in, and will switch later to treating any Linux effort like it has treated the Zune, also known as "extinguish". It gets away with that because there's a new generation of management in that has not been exposed to its long and rich history of, umm, less than clean hands in IT.

      The only problem for Redmond: Linux isn't Microsoft's, so it's not that easy to kill, but it'll solve that by some disasters that will be blamed on Linux, and the rest is marketing.

      Your way forward: listen politely to what the Microsoft rep tries to sell you, then implement it in a way that allows you to rip out the Microsoft part and continue regardless. That is, if your golfing boss lets you, because that's where the real problem comes from.

      It's really not a new tactic. It applied some new jargon and framework gloss, but it's the same bucket of rusty, broken parts they've been hawking for ages.

      Did I miss anything, or was that a bit too clear for comfort?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sure, it translates into "we are going to embrace all this open source stuff and slowly pull these chumps on to our proprietary products".... If people are buying interoperability software from Microsoft, they deserve whatever comes their way. MSFT has a long history which should give you an indication that they are going to let you down. Fool you once, shame on MSFT. Fool you 86 times, shame on you.

    4. ecofeco Silver badge

      "It's too super complex for you plebes so just give us the money because complexity du jour is super cool and all the hipsters are doing!"

    5. oldcoder

      How about "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish..."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        How about "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish..."

        That was kinda implied in my translation, yes :).

        The names have changed and the tech is slightly different, but the very approach and playbook has pretty much remained the same throughout Microsoft's history. Apropos playbook, keep an eye on Google as they are fairly accurately following the same scenarios, including the "ignore the law as long as you can get away with it" part.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          There is absolutely no way MSFT is into Linux because they want to become a Red Hat reseller. It just doesn't make sense. Satya just realizes that they are going to become a niche, legacy thing if they only support Windows... but it is just a fact, based on incentives (sales people are paid much more when they sell Windows vs Linux on Azure), that they are going to push you hard to Windows if you start with Linux.

          I know for a fact that they supported Oracle DB on Azure, but then had a licensing snafu with Oracle, so they said.... net of it was that every Oracle DB customer on Azure received a MS SQL migration proposal. MSFT is not going to be satisfied until they own absolutely everything, even then they won't be happy.

    6. Ellis Birt 1

      Our crystal-ball gazers have seen a day when consumers of data will be using a whole host of devices from many vendors. Some will even dispense with keyboards and mice and, god forbid, Windows.

      Eventually, even offices will start to use non-Microsoft systems.

      They say that going forward, investment in our own consumer operating system will diverge from that of our server operating system, which will necessarily become more expensive. The only way will be to cut support for all but a restricted set of hardware that will support our hosted systems, but will make on-premise systems prohibitive.

      We think our own hosted systems are great and will take us forward as a market leading PaaS provider, but there are still luddites in major organisations that would rather re-develop their systems on another vendors platform than put their data out in the anarchic world of the Internet.

      If we make our PaaS infrastructure work on Linux, the on-premise luddites can have their own cloud, meaning that the "Microsoft Stack" will continue to be the technology stack of choice for many developers, most of whom will be happy to use our PaaS.

      If it works, we could even save money by phasing out Windows NT from our hosting platform.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    No thanks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For real.... this is just another version of Microsoft's "embrace-extended-extinguish." It's for suckers, as is MSFT's support of Linux.... It isn't different because they have capitalist Buddha (Satya) on stage instead of Ballmer. Satya's just a better salesman. Same as before, but now with a different tone.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      No thanks exactly.

      I don't use Linux because I want to use Microsoft. Seriously, WTFF are they thinking?

  3. Preston Munchensonton
    Linux

    Pretty sure that the penguin in the lead pic is begging for a quick death...

    1. Preston Munchensonton
      Stop

      Damn it! Thanks El Reg for changing the pic. #wankers

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Coat

    Fabric?

    Would that be a nice hardwearing Tweed or some pretty Gingham?

    Mines the one made of Waxed Cotton with a silk tie in the pocket.

    1. Nolveys

      Re: Fabric?

      I'm not sure what the fabric is, but I would hope it's machine washable. The whole Reliable Actor model thing could be an issue as it will introduce severe compatibility problems when running Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Fabric?

      Polyester and pleather.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "According to Microsoft, many of its own cloud services run on Service Fabric"

    That certainly explains all the lags and service outages.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Haha, Azure and O365 crash a lot.... It kind of makes sense though. It's hosted Windows and Exchange.

  6. MrTuK

    Cloud !

    Sorry I don't use cloud services - especially if a the supplying company is any of the following ;

    1.) Untrustyworthy.

    2.) Insecure.

    3.) Data slurper.

    I use Ubuntu and I won't allow any of these updates into my installation otherwise I will use another distro !

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cloud !

      I use cloud services, but from companies who know what they are doing (AWS, moving to Google)... and don't want to use cloud as an opportunity to push me into their legacy proprietary software. People who use Azure are asking for it.

      1. a_yank_lurker

        Re: Cloud !

        I have a limited use of the public cloud but will avoid Slurp like the plague because I trust them less than their competitors.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Cloud !

          You do realize that A) this is not an ad sponsored business so there will be no crawlers on your data and B) all of this "data privacy" nonsense about Google was, it is verified, a Microsoft smear campaign. MSFT pays for the groups who are (paid to be) concerned about what Google is doing. MSFT cannot beat Google at anything, ever on the merits. That's just historical fact. They instead, Ballmer specifically, decided the way to go about it was to just pay many millions to slime them. Hell, MSFT sold "Scroogled" merchandise in their company store for awhile. Classy. It is absurdly hypocritically too as MSFT built back doors (confirmed, thanks to Snowden) to Windows for the NSA since forever. MSFT was pumping your data to the spy masters, Google was just crawling your stuff to pick out spam and serve up some relevant ads.

          If you research the tech, Google Cloud Platform is insanely impressive.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Gimp

      Re: Cloud !

      Better make sure you're not using the linux-virtual kernel then, because that's got Microsoft (and VMware, and Oracle) code in it.

  7. Kev99 Silver badge

    How do you say "BSOD" in Penguinista?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Login?

      I really don't know. I'll let you know when I actually see one. I know it exists, or so I've been told, but I have yet to see one.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      How do you say "BSOD" in Penguinista?

      it's a screen saver on Linux

      funny story, CEO of a company I used to do work for saw a Linux box with a BSOD screen saver running, saw the screen, and was concerned, until I said "it's just a screen saver", then told me about this happening at another company where someone called the IT people over while the user of that particular box had been at lunch to "fix the blue screen". He also asked that it NOT display that particular screen so nobody would freak out.

      which then, of course, makes the inevitable point about BSODs and windows in general, and all of those funny pictures people have been submitting, "world's tallest BSOD" etc.

      (topic-related, I suppose triggering a BSOD in Win-10-nic might be a vector into safe mode, etc. and I suppose it could be done with a 'rogue' USB device)

  8. W. Anderson

    Upside Down solution

    Any knowledgeable business owner, meaning not those who know and accept only Microsoft speak or lame solutions, would be insane to chose Microsoft for hosting Linux based Cloud Services with Linux applications under Microsoft Azure Cloud services.

    It has been reported dozens of times by eminent Linux and Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) core developers and organizations that pure Linux/FOSS platforms supporting Windows client services performs significantly faster, more reliably and more securely than the lame concept of running Linux Operating System (OS) base and applications as guests on wobbly Microsoft foundation.

    Dozens of credible, (reasonably) objective real world case studies and live projects in USA and several European and Asian nations clearly corroborate such findings.

    There are however, probably many Microsoft loyal customers, who are disgruntled with their heroine's technology and are aware of benefits in FOSS, but are at least somewhat pacified by Microsoft second tier offerings.

    The world is awash, mostly in USA, with Microsoft Stockholm Syndrome.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Upside Down solution

      The USA is one big Stockholm Syndrome. Corporate style.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Upside Down solution

      "Any knowledgeable business owner, meaning not those who know and accept only Microsoft speak or lame solutions, would be insane to chose Microsoft for hosting Linux based Cloud Services with Linux applications under Microsoft Azure Cloud services."

      it happens. at one company, we were using multiple "el cheapo" Linspire machines as "build machines" with whatever Linux (or even FreeBSD) version made sense re-installed onto it, so that we'd have a consistent official build environment.for various flavors of firmware, once for each flavor. This filled up a closet with 6 individual boxen that consumed power.

      The obvious solution: virtualize them. The chosen virtualizer? VMWare [a decent choice].

      The chosen host platform? Windows Server 2003. ew.

      Yes, we *TRIED* to convince the software development manager that hosting Linux VMs on windows was kinda, dumb. No effect.

      WORSE: the source control system 'Perforce' was being used, because it worked well WITH Linux (and FreeBSD, my favorite). It also works ON Linux. However, certain Linux kernel images had case-sensitive file names that differed by CASE, and so when it was hosted on WINDOWS, you'd get some name clashing and this was very bad. Solution? Host it in a VM running on a WINDOWS SERVER 2003 MACHINE. I facepalmed over THAT one. I could NOT convince the software manager of the error of his ways.

      On a related note, the manager was a fan of ".Net", mono, C-pound, Windows Vista, and "that way" of doing things. And yet, we were almost EXCLUSIVELY a Linux shop, doing company-related firmware modifications for wireless access points running Linux and occasionally VxWorks, but sometimes doing 'windows things' too.

      yes, SWALLOWED THE COOLAID, and STOCKHOLM SYNDROME. I don't think it was possible for him to see things any other way. sad.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't you already do all this stuff in Linux

    for Free ???

    1. hplasm
      Linux

      Re: Can't you already do all this stuff in Linux

      True, but without the Emperor's New Clothes*.

      Far too simple.

      *Fabric, eh?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Docker?

    I second the first post. The article says almost nothing in a lot of words.

    From what little I could gather though, are they proposing their own version of Docker? Or am I miles off the mark?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am really worried

    Every time I hear Linux mentioned in the same breath as those twats at redmond it makes my skin crawl. It's like a hideous beast in a horror film inching it's way nearer the heroine of a horror film.

    I stuck with your shit operating systems for nearly 20 years Microsoft and none of them worked properly or served my interests (just yours).

    I've really enjoyed having an operating system that actually works and does what it's supposed to!

    I do not want you getting your claws into Linux thank you very much, because you will fuck it up completely - that's what you do best! Come to think of it, it's all you do!

    SO SOD OFF MICROSOFT.

    GET BACK IN YOUR CORNER AND STAY WELL AWAY FROM LINUX - YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND IT AT ALL!

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