Things are changing in the Microsoft and Linux worlds

Jul 16, 2015 19:54 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform is very popular among Linux users and numerous distros are supported. Microsoft is now doing the "inconceivable" and it will provide support for Linux users who have deployed OSes in Azure.

Surprisingly, the Azure platform from the Redmond-based tech company is quite popular, even if it arrived quite late to the party. The fact that Linux users can deploy their solutions in Azure has definitely made a contribution to its success, but make no mistake about it, Microsoft is doing this for the money. It's not a bad thing, but it also forces the tech giant to be a lot more responsible than it currently is with its clients.

Up until now, if a client had a problem, Microsoft would try to determine if it was something on their part of the fence. If it weren't, they would send that client to the developers of the Linux distro. As you can see, it's not something that you want to do to your client. So, Microsoft is starting to provide support for the Linux part as well, at least in a limited capacity.

Lots of distros are now supported

If you think about it, Microsoft didn't really had a choice on the matter. The company can't afford to lose a client because of support issues, so providing support for Linux OSes was the obvious solution.

"If for example you were having trouble installing CoreOS on Azure VM, or experiencing a performance problem with your MySQL application on Azure; after verifying that the Azure platform was not the issue, you would be directed to work with your Linux or OSS providers to find a solution.

"This meant a potentially simple configuration problem or usage issue could take longer to resolve when a customer gets redirected. Starting on July 15th we are pleased to announce the availability of limited support for major Linux distributions, third party and Open source technologies on Azure," wrote Guy Bowerman, Senior Program Manager for Azure.

The supported Linux distros on Azure are Ubuntu, CentOS (OpenLogic), Oracle Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), OpenSuSE, and CoreOS. However, Microsoft is not planning on providing full support, just stuff that covers installation, configuration, performance, and networking. Other domains like security, deployment, design, and so on won't be covered by support.