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Red Hat Not Seeing Microsoft, Ubuntu as Threats
Ian Price writes "Red Hat is shrugging off Microsoft's entry into the cluster computing space after Microsoft announced that it has completed the code for its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 targeting high-performance computing. From the article: 'Scott Crenshaw, general manager of enterprise Linux platform at Red Hat, dismissed Microsoft's entry into cluster computing. "They're playing catch-up," he said. "Linux is often associated with high-performance computing, but Windows has never achieved that on a large scale."' Crenshaw also commented with respect to Ubuntu: 'Their user base is still small, so we're not seeing the impact of it [Ubuntu] so far.'"
I think Netscape was quoted as saying something similar shortly before Internet Explorer utterly destroyed their marketshare. If nothing else, don't underestimate Microsoft's ability to leverage their monopoly into new markets.
I am sure Microsoft said the same thing about Red Hat. Pride goes before a fall Red Hat.
Philosophy.
Fix your package manager!
I am sick of downloading packages from weird websites, version conflicts, and typing this stupid and overly long command into the shell over and over, hoping - nay, praying - that RPM won't spit out another conflict error this time. YUM seems tacked on, and I've never gotten it to work properly.
I switched to Ubuntu, even though it had less polish and was so deep in development, simply because application management actually worked, and things were in a logical order (supported, unsupported, universe, multiverse).
Maybe it's not practical, maybe I'm talking out of my ass having not used a Red Hat operating system since Fedora Core 3, but it's the only thing that prevents me from using Fedora at home or on a server, and the only thing that prevents me from recommending it to friends.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
An announcement today from Excite CEO Foo McBar stated that "We don't see google as a problem. They can't hurt us. Na na na na."
RRRRiiiigggghhtttt... Microsoft may be a newcomer to the cluster market, but just because it's a Microsoft product doesn't mean it's "omg sux0r". Only time can tell if the new Windows cluster system will be decent. However, it is illogical (and bad business practice) for Red Hat to be "unconcerned" about new competition.
Why would Redhat see Ubuntu as a threat? Ubuntu is an end-user distribution, Redhat doesn't even sell to end-users anymore. If Redhat were at all inclined to care about whether Ubuntu becomes king of its space, we'd know it already, because they'd have been doing a lot more to make Fedora worthwhile these last couple of years.
Years and years and years.
They've had several clusters into the Top500 several times.
A couple examples are a NSCA self-made cluster of NT machines that reached rank 207 in June 2000 top500 list. It consisted of 256-processor production supercluster, which consists of 128 Hewlett-Packard machines with dual 550-MHz Intel Pentium III Xeon processors.
These early efforts were typified by statements like:
"Couldn't barely get the benchmark done before the entire cluster would go done"
"If one node failed the entire cluster would go down"
And stuff like that.
That's the first time NT posted a top500 standing. They had earlier efforts going back several years.
About every single top500 list since then had a Microsoft-based cluster somewere.. Until recently.
Now Linux, which started gaining ground about the same time that Microsoft started with clustering research, now dominates the top500 list.
Good luck on that one, MS. I also like how their P.R. stuff always makes it sound like Microsoft just started getting into clustering.
While I think ubuntu is really, really great, I don't see it offering any more of a challenge to RedHat than debian does; quite on the contrary, in fact, since ubuntu focuses on the desktop while RedHat and debian focus on the server (I know debian doesn't *officially* focus on the server, but still...).
As for MS, well, they are usually able to strike a balance between "does not suck TOO much" and "has microsoft on the name" that appeals to a lot of people, even on corporate servers etc. Still, maybe the HPC market has people knowledgeable enough not to be impressed by branding alone.
In that case, they will have to have a real appeal on the quality/performance front and, even in this case, will be fighting an uphill battle against the "established" systems. Maybe they will learn how it feels to be on the other side of competition?
When a company admits the competition is a threat, wake me up.
In most cases confessing a threat means your competition has just as good or better product. If the company can't claim some other detail like monopoly abuse or control over distribution channels or whatever, they will just publically "dismiss" the threat, but you know they are working frantically to fight it, and having really bad nightmares every night about it.
The most ridiculous example of this "strategy" recently was the public mocking of the $100 laptop initiative of MIT's Negroponte by Intel and Microsoft top figures.
I've noticed this sort of dismissial from Red Hat, although as a customer and not as competition. I recently went through a process with Red Hat customer support and sales that left me thinking that they simply didn't want my business. For my application FSMLabs and Ubuntu are honestly looking like a viable options for the midrange enterprise and carrier networks.
- Then they fight y...
Oh, wait... You say it's RedHat ignoring Microsoft and not the other way around??Copy, Create, Conquer.
They absolutely done it more than once. Im suprised how microsoft keeps getting away with it.
"First, they ignore you;
Then, they laugh at you;
Then, they fight you;
Then, you win."
I don't remember who said it, but apparently MS is not someone Redhat is ignoring.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
For instance, they need to achieve a "critical mass" of users before hardware and software vendors certify their products against any Linux distribution, he explained.
Ubuntu market and RHEL market is totally different. Ubuntu is "now" heading toward Enterprise desktop environment with support, but Ubuntu had and always has been about average joe's Desktop PC while RHEL had and always has been about heavily toward Enterprise customers. So I think, by reading the article, it looks like RH is taking Ubuntu as not a competitor, but rather as a grassroot movement trying to reach that "critical mass". And to be fair, Crenshaw did point out a very good point here. That is, popularity doesn't count for the vendor certification which is the industry embracing OS distro with hardware and software for better customer support and that is what Enterprise customers look for.
Microsoft being in cluster market so late in the game, it's fair to say that MS had failed to grab the market share early on. So the statement in the article is accurate. Who knows if MS will monopolize cluster market share in coming years? But this statement is on the bull's eye.
"Linux is often associated with high-performance computing, but Windows has never achieved that on a large scale."
This has been the case for Microsoft. When Win2k Data Center edition was coming out, I was hoping better support for complete cluster suite, but wasn't satisfied with MS's offering with half baked solution and limitations. Besides, call me crazy, but 200+ cluster nodes, there is no way single Windows cluster node installation will be easier than a kickstart/NFS/bash script of RHEL cluster node. I don't know, maybe there is similar thing for Windows... I'm not a Windows guy, so I'm not sure. Please do correct me.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Anyone who has used Ubuntu lately on a desktop or a laptop can tell you that it is a strong altnernative to Red Hat. Red Hat will ignore Ubuntu at its peril.
Google trends on "Debian, Red Hat, CentOS, Ubuntu" Conclusion: Red Hat is in deep trouble.
Looking at 12 month charts for MSFT & RHAT, I think it's safe to say investors agree with Redhat.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I run Beowulf Clusters for a living.. Three to be exact. Two run Gentoo and one runs Mac OS. I see Mac OS as a far more likely product in clusters than Microsoft. And even then Mac OS is missing huge chunks of functionality in the cluster world. Checkpointing is broken using Condor and there is no third party apps for Grid Engine. Most programs fail to compile without some massaging. Often programs attempt to compile against native libraries rather than X11. This prevents remote users from using the apps.
Even with all of this though programs can be made to work. I have something like 100 custom programs that needed installed on my clusters. NCBI tools, Bio apps, stuff like that. All of them are coded to Unix environments. Compiling them on windows would be a total pain in the butt! I keep hearing that new programs will be made to work but I don't see that happening all that much. Most new programs are forks of old programs. (At least in the Bio/Geo worlds.) I still have TONS of fortran stuff out there. Lots and lots of stuff that only compiles against GCC 2.95. These things need modified in order to work with a newer version of the SAME OS.. you think a total change is going to happen?
Plus.. The cost of the OS can be killer. When you are talking $1200-$3400 a node an added $500 is huge! Our Mac OS cluster cost us $50k in software licenses. And its 50 nodes. Even if Microsoft drops the price to $100 a pop that is still REALLY expensive. $100 a pop across 50 nodes pays for a bunch more nodes!
So I guess what I am saying is that unless Microsoft starts writing tons of its own apps it won't break into the cluster world very fast. They will be luck to grow as fast as Apple has (%1 of the top 500 list in 4 years).
Ok, MS just released Cluster Server 2003... Um is my clock set right? It is 2006 right?
What now in 3 years they are going to release Cluster Server 2005....
And we're supposed to be worried about it? Their software is admittedly at least 3 years behind the times right there in the title of the software it says so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Fix your package manager!
I am sick of downloading packages from weird websites, version conflicts, and typing this stupid and overly long command into the shell over and over, hoping - nay, praying - that RPM won't spit out another conflict error this time. YUM seems tacked on, and I've never gotten it to work properly."
AAAAAAAAmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnn to that brother, I hear ya!
Complex & Fragile package management & Arcane system directory layout are what drove me away from Linux.
I eneded up spending just as much time maintaining the system as I did on Windows because of these problems.
...is the fact that Red Hat had been quoting Ghandi with the "First they ignore you..." stuff in some of their flash ad campaigns. Talk about practice what you preach. Seems like RedHat is turning into a big group of hypocrites. *hugs apt-get/debian*
Sig: I stole this sig.
For an OS you say is focused on the desktop Ubuntu has certainly making moves towards server space.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Who would possibly win?
RedHat listens only to its customers - proportionaly to the price they have paid. Ubuntu still listens to its fellow users.
RedHat would score all enterprise contracts and might replace M$ in its role of "single OS vendor" with all consequences. Ubuntu (as well as Debian) would score all grass root deployments.
I already had experience of RedHat in office and Debian at home. IMHO RedHat, as it is now, is already good replacement for Microsoft: unusable default installation, updates break things, no proper application versioning (CVS200X0Y0Z1030 is NOT a version number), etc. On other side Debian... is STILL just WORKS. As it did all along 7 last years.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
1) The right way of spamming the world: A top 100 cluster under Microsoft OS control gets a I.Love.U2 virus
2) An interactive assistant - Microsoft PaperClip - grows fast and takes the world under its control
3) Finally Vista runs at decent speed. Modest Min Sys Req - a cluster
4) The_Big_Bang_simulation.vbp
I agree with most of your comment. Here's where I take a different view --
Given that I'm not Microsoft, or Red Hat, I'd rather be a Red Hat stockholder than a Microsoft stockholder.
Also, I'd rather be monetizing services for rapidly spreading open-source software, than trying to get developing nations to pay for my proprietary software.
I urge you to focus on the direction and rate of the change, rather than the magnitude of the status quo.
There are too many people in the world not using computers yet. Eventually, most will. But if everyone paid Windows licensing fees, many developing nations would have to hand over most of their GNP to Microsoft. That's absurd!
In my humble opinion, it makes sense for India, China and several other developing countries to throw their collective might behind internationalized open-source software running on commodity hardware. When there are literally a million eyeballs scouring OSS for bugs, we'll see phenomenal changes in this playing field!
If intellectual property were enriched Uranium, intellectual property law would be the mechanism in an atomic bomb that prevents critical mass, and an economic boom.
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
Well, something went wrong somewere.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I heard that you're going to need a cluster of 8 Quad-Xeon's just to render the UI on Vista :p
Red Hat's remark reminds Mahatma Gandhi's "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win" .
/home/common to share files
There is a new distro, I think at the "ignore" stage, is known as Tomahawk Desktop (http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/). Did you guys see their new offering?
Ubuntu's latest 6.06 is child's play compared to Tomahawk Desktop.
See following for Ubuntu's report card:
1.QoS is pfifo_fast (the default, No rules to prioritize traffic)
2.Every thing one partition except swap!
3.Does not recognize Windows exists
4.Internet browsing by Firefox is crawl to maximum on a high speed LAN!!!
5.No mechanism like Tomahawk's
6.Very funny routing table on machines with LAN and wireless cards!!!
I could be wrong, but isn't this the year 2006?
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Try it the other way around
Microsoft Windows is often associated with desktop computing, but Linux has never achieved that on a large scale.
So RedHat is basically saying that (RH)Linux will never ever be able compete on the desktop. Then why are they putting all the effort in it?
"So RedHat is basically saying that (RH)Linux will never ever be able compete on the desktop. Then why are they putting all the effort in it?"
Translation: Because Redhat said that MS entry into the high performance computing is playing catch-up they must be conceeding that they will never be able to compete on the desktop.
Fails the logic test I'm afraid.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Please correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't RedHat sell their maintenance services, and their training primarily? Even if Ubuntu steps into the enterprise market with a free product, I doubt their service will be free. Also RedHat has a well-recognized name in the linux enterprise market - it will take Ubuntu a great deal if time and effort to steal that mind and market share from RedHat -- plenty of time to 'react', or better yet improve their service and value.
But I do agree that RedHat needs to beware of falling victim to Ghandi's famous quote about first they ignore, then they laugh, then they fight, then you win -- they being RH and you being Ubuntu.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
This time RedHat != Linux.
...
...hum... wonder if this windows flavor could be subverted as an even cheaper Windows to be installed on desktops. (I don't mind missing all "wonderful" features available in other flavors like the ActiveX-bugged IE or the DRM-laden Media Player. Just want a kernel that is compatible with games. I'll fix the gaps with OSS and stick to linux for the rest)
If RH starts loosing market share, it'll more likely be to other Linux distributor or other opensource os, like suse,ubuntu,debian,openbsd,etc.
It's not the whole Linux community of developppers ingoring they adversaries, it's only *a* specific solution vendor.
You can kill distribution, but it's much harder to kill Linux as a whole.
Netscape Navigator almost disappeared back then, because it depended on a sinle company and that company failed to notice the threat and lost market shares.
That and I'm sure Microsoft will manage to build something that sucks in terms of scaliability, reliability and above all : possibility of customisation and reasonnable per-CPU license price.
Some labs build huge clusters, this new Windows flavor must cost less than the "Windows Beginners Edition [a.k.a. 3rd world edition]" (*) and provide impeccable service, otherwise it can't compete with opensource softwares.
Plus, unlike in the browser case, Microsoft can't try to leverage its desktop OS monopoly : you can bundle a browser on a widely deployed OS, but you can't "bundle a cluster" inside the OS - that sentence doesn't make sense.
Clusters are mostly custom build to specific needs, by people who have enough technical knowledge to assemble whatever they need. Windows Cluster-flavor must attract them by its qualities, not because laziness drives them to choose whatever option came with the box...
(*):
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I see lots of comments here about MS being an also-ran in the cluster market. And there are lots more comments about how MS will "leverage their monopoloy" or their huge cash hoard to ultimately succeed in clusters. What I think everyone is missing is the role tools will play in this market. In my opinion, whichever cluster OS has the best development tools that make it easy to develop cluster-based applications will be the hands-down winner. And in that space I think you have to bet on MS enjoying a serious advantage. Picture a "drop-down" box in Visual Studio under the Code Generation tab of project properties that says something like: "Optimize for Cluster" -- if developers could get cluster-optimized code with very little additional effort they will flock to it.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
With gentoo if you have an ebuild version 1.0.0 of a piece of software and you want version 1.0.1, then most of the time you can get a valid ebuild for v1.0.1 with the single command "mv foobar-1.0.{0,1}.ebuild". If the dependances have changed this might not work, even then you can just open the ebuild with a text editor and fix it. (see e.g. http://linuxreviews.org/gentoo/ebuilds/)
I use Ubuntu, but I find the flexibility of ebuild really tempting.
Red Hat does not offer a competing product, so what is the problem? There are many "cluster distributions" out there, but neither Red Hat, Suse, or any other major vendor have a well integrated cluster version of Linux. There are things like Rocks, Oscar, Warewulf, and companies like Scalable Informatics, or Basement Supercomputing are there if you need help.
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
I think it would be better if they went for once a year rather than twice a year for major releases. The current model means quite a bit of perpetual betaware, too much stuff is being shipped broken now.
Does anyone know the equivalent under Debian/Ubuntu?
Yum works pretty well, it may be slow, but its a huge improvement. The problem is that yum is useless with RHEL. With RHEL customers are stuck with up2date, which is completely lacking. FC5 is solid distro but your inclusion of a long FAQ showcases my issues with Fedora and many other distros. People should not have to read a FAQ to play movies, visit flash websites, and use Java applets. It should all work out of the box..
I've made a few very long-term predictions that have come true... like the unilateral pullout from Gaza and the security fence/wall.
Here's another: RedHat and Microsoft will both be seriously damaged by Ubuntu.
Reasons why:
- Opensource is the only trend Microsoft can't fight with money. As technology progresses, some applications (such as Netscape, Office, and Windows) become mature, old technologies, with little money left to go after. That's when open-source takes over. I'm a Microsoft fan, but I see the writing on the wall.
- RedHat, who is practically in my back yard, and who powered my machines for the last five years, has really messed up. By splitting into Fedora and Enterprise, and then failing to support Fedora properly (actually sabotaging it), they've PO'ed the open-source community. By trying to control ALL software that their package manager can install, they've bitten off more than they can chew. By forcing their control over the entire distribution, and ingnoring many inovations being incorporated into distributions like Debian, they've lost their lead, and are now a poor overall distribution. RedHat still has a chance, but the long string of very poor decisions from RedHat are a solid indicator of more to come.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Question: "roll your own"? That sounds hard... is it hard? Where to start?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I have to keep asking this... given the incredibly high prices, very few places can afford to run RHEL. Fedora's not designed for servers or long term stability. An awful lot of us small-business and ISPs completely dumped Red Hat as soon as they implemented that. Nowadays, the closest thing to Red Hat that we're running is CentOS, and many went to SuSE or Debian or anything else, and now with Ubuntu offering a great alternative to Fedora, I don't see why anyone should care what Red Hat thinks.
At one time, Red Hat was almost synonymous with Linux in eyes of many people. Can anyone realistically say that today?
I compare it to Veritas and Sun Cluster. Compared to either of these, RH is a total nightmare to set up, and you end up wondering where are all those features you are used to.
If I were RedHat, I would be more humble in my statements.
Apple makes Xsan, Xgrid.
I started out on Fedora, using 1-3 before moving over to Ubuntu. After waiting for what I thought would be the best Ubuntu ever, instead is a pain to install and now freezes on boot every time. FC5 on the other hand is easily Fedora's best release so far, as they have continued to replace and refine things that need to be (need we mention up2date?)
I'm rather running under the impression that Dilbert was never asked to build a cluster from his Pointy-Haired-Boss.
I'm presuming that what I see around is the most common situation else-where:
Stability, security and quality are very important, because, when writing a paper that basically says that you couldn't reach any result because the cluster kept crashing, you're sure the paper is very unlikely to get published, which will hurt the rating of the lab.
Price *is* very important too because project funding isn't that easy in Universities (*insert favorite PhDcomics referrence here*) and cheaper project tend to be preferred. If all Windows Cluster-flavor has to offer is worse quality for a higher price tag, it won't work.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Ubuntu may have a small user base, but from what i have seen they sure are rabid fans. (my neighbour goes around people's houses and distributes cds of ubuntu for free. he even offers to install it for them)
Red Hat is better. Period. Ubuntu's quality assurance process is terrible. Remember the bug with the sudo "superuser" password laying around in a world-readable plain text file? Simply inexcusable that that ever made it into a "production" release.
and probably without too much effort either. Think Dnet client, only XPnet (or soon to be Vnet) clients built into the OS.
The new status quo would be distributed processing. Think how Microsoft could leverage it's inefficient software and operating systems by leeching processor power and memory from the workstations themselves especially with 10/100/1000 switches fast becoming the norm. Forget client side processing, client side serving could give M$ a huge leap forward without actually having to develop the leanest, most secure, or efficient code.
I think RH is underestimating ubuntu. The market share in ZA and Europe is increasing rapidly. Also IBM dand some other vendors certified the distribution for their hardware. To make things even worse for RH. A friend of mine (former WinXP user) installed today Ubuntu from the live CD.
Ubuntu asked him 7 easy question and after that it took about 45 minutes to install. No errors, no fideling with the X setup. The machine was ready for work. It was really impressing. I haven't seen a RH or SUSE/Novell distribution to perform that well lately. Every time, they failed to get everything right. Sound problems, slightly broken X configuration, etc. Nothing really serious, nothing which couldn't be fixed in some minutes. But such errors are annoying and the average WinXP user cannot fix them. (the most annoying thing about SUSE is subfs)
Lets hope they continue to see less of a threat from the threats in their market. I'm still of the opinion that there are alot better products out there than deadrat enterprise whatever they're still selling, and their dora core thingy whatsit that still isnt stable and still doesnt have any major goal other than soak away brain power from other linux projects like ubuntu and debian and even slackware (gasp)
I cant believe the amount of problems I have with deadrat products on a daily basis that could be fixed with a simple migration away from deadrat. I'm sorry but a patched up 2.6.9 kernel is still a 2.6.9 kernel in the end. And having a 4 year old version of named and other products are still 4 year old versions, no matter how frankinstienly they've been patched up!
I don't see many Windows servers or desktops being replaced with RedHat at work. However, I see many old Unix installations (Sun and others) being replaced with x86 systems running RHEL or CentOS.
It would be a first for MS in the server market thats for sure.