Last week was a big one for Microsoft in DevOps. At the Build conference they unveiled several new features and functionality in both Azure and Visual Studio Online to make give them more DevOps chops and DevOps friendly.
At just about the same time they announced partnerships and integrations with both Chef and Puppet Labs to bring even more DevOps to Azure. That is an awful lot of DevOps functionality in a short period of time.
Frankly it is to be expected though. In doing my research for DevOps.com prior to launch, I had a chance to speak to some folks at Microsoft about DevOps. Frankly they were frustrated. They thought they had a great story around DevOps and had not been able to attract the DevOps community to what they had available. Microsoft, much like IBM at one time owned the developer market. In fact the sheer number of developers who still develop in Visual Studio and code for .Net and other Microsoft platforms, is pretty amazing.
Now you don’t just have .net folks on Azure anymore. The platform now supports Node.js. Java. PHP and more. It blends both IaaS and PaaS, allowing users to slide between them almost seamlessly.
In the meantime DBMaestro announced it was bringing DevOps for database to MS SQL server. This is the same teamwork functionality that DBMaestro already delivered to Oracle users.
In addition to these announcements Microsoft also released some metrics that show just how scalable and quick the uptake has been on Azure and Visual Studio Online. Ultimately the answer will be do enough developers think Microsoft gives them what they need to build great applications on a great platform. This will determine whether Microsoft becomes a competitor to Amazon and Open Stack in the public Cloud.
But they are making their play. Whether you love them or hate them, it is never smart to bet against Microsoft. The numbers they announced last week show they can gain critical mass pretty quickly.
There are some good background stories on this at Redmond Mag, eWeek and TechWeek Europe. We will have a full feature story here on DevOps.com shortly.
On another note, here at DevOps.com we have put up our DevOps business directory in beta. Over the next few weeks we will pretty it up, but right now we are testing the functionality. We have populated the directory with some companies, but need more. Listing a company is free and if you list your company this week, we will upgrade you to the deluxe listing free ($99 value).
You can add long and short descriptions, logos, files to download, contact info and more. The directory over time will we hope become the source for finding DevOps related companies.
Look for more DevOps.com features and events over the coming days and weeks.
