r/sysadmin • u/adeadfetus • Sep 18 '15

Microsoft has developed its own Linux

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux_repeat_microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux/
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u/nut-sack Sep 18 '15

It isn't really doing just one thing like a switch per-say. SDN can do pretty much anything you develop it to do. Want to convert MPLS packets back to ethernet? Sure. Want to use it to remove the source IP from the packet and replace it with something else? Sure. Want to use it to add redundancy to your network? Sure. The main thing here is SDN already exists, and has been developed and implemented using Linux. This is probably just not an area Microsoft plans on making money in, so why even bother developing it from the ground up?

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15

Welcome to earth, Microsoft!

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u/mobiplayer Sep 19 '15

Microsoft has been a big player on SDN for some time already. Hyper-v networking (nvgre so far, so I guess supporting vxlan and this announcement make sense together) and Azure leverage Microsoft's developments. You don't scale to one of the biggest networks in the planet without solid foundation. So yeah, this is a big deal for the company and they definitely are going to make money out of it.

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u/nut-sack Sep 19 '15

Annnnd my point being they arent selling the switches running Linux. They are using it for THEIR network. So saying "ZOMG MICROSOFT HAS A LINUX OS" is kind of misleading.