Rumor: Apple's iCloud powered by Microsoft, Amazon servers - Page 4

Yah, but it's not about the hardware in this case. And Apple doesn't build the core software needed to run cloud services. They are masters at bringing the experience to the end user. If that means farming out the cloud infrastructure to experienced companies, so be it. As hard as it is to swallow to think that I'm trusting my data to Microsoft, I rest easy knowing that Apple hasn't put all of its eggs in one basket. They never caved into an exclusive contract with a single provider. That I can live with.

I have greater faith in the little voice I hear in my own farts than I do any words coming from The Register.

There's another theory. Both Microsoft and Amazon are direct competitors to Apple in mobile. Why not attack them from the underside? Why not embrace and extinguish? Fool them into playing along and then unleash a big surprise that you don't need them anymore? You're self-sustaining with your own technology, your own APIs, your own data centers?

Apple needs to start somewhere and it's smart for them to utilize existing infrastructure so they can provide a reliable foundation to grow on. But this is just one step in a long journey.

Let's also not forget the cries of "Even Microsoft can't use their own stuff" on this forum when it was discovered that certain Microsoft commercials were produced on Macs. Would the same people who are excusing Apple for not using its own products for iCloud servers be just as willing to excuse Microsoft?

There is an argument to be made to be free of any MS UI (eg, ditching MS Office but still using MS Exchange).

I don't get the comparison. Both Microsoft and Apple make a consumer OS. Ads are created on consumer PCs. Apple and Microsoft both compete in this market.


Apple doesn't compete with companies like Oracle, Sun, HP, IBM, and Microsoft offering corporate data management services.

The difference is that Microsoft was advertising and promoting their product as being great for professional graphics users at the same time their commercials were made on Macs. Apple is not (and never has) promoted their product as being marketed for Enterprise server applications.


The difference is that Microsoft ALSO competes in the Enterprise server market. Apple doesn't.


Apple has the capital to make sailboats right, too. That doesn't mean that they should.

One of the big lessons from Apple's performance for the past 10 years is that you should focus on what you do well and not mess with things that don't play to your strength.


Mac users have always been dependent on Windows. Power plants, billing from utilities and creditors, airline flight schedules, and a million other things. And that's not likely to change any time soon.

Mac users choose not to use Windows on their own computers, but that doesn't mean that they are not affected by Windows - nor do I know of anyone who ever made that silly claim.

Does anyone -- ANYONE -- reading this thread know anything about cloud computing?

1. Yes, it's entirely believable and entirely possible that Apple would contract with other cloud infrastructure companies to support the iCloud initiative. If they didn't, they'd be insane. Services like Amazon's AWS are robust, ubiquitous throughout the web, and distributed throughout the globe.

2. Developers build applications that rest in/on AWS or Azure. These are not things used by end users. It will have absolutely no impact on you if the data served by iCloud comes from Apple's single, solitary data center or from a data center regionally closer to you. Indeed, you won't even be able to tell the provenance of the data.

3. If you browse the web at all, you are indirectly using both AWS and Azure constantly. To make ridiculous statements like that above are completely non-sensical.

Precisely. I actually rather doubt that many of the posters making those "ridiculous statements" really believe what they are arguing. It looks to me more like it just became perceived as an opportunity for some very contrived payback for past criticism of Microsoft, and enthusiasm trumped common sense. And, as usual, the bait was taken.

I totally agree. Apple has always demonstrated that they use there own hardware and software for everything they do. Apple's server software is quite competent doing anything they need. I don't think they built that North Carolina plant to hold Microsoft or Amazon servers in it. I'm not sure where this information came from but I'm totally sure it isn't correct. If Apple is going to serve info, it will be on Apple server hardware and software.

Me get. Thanks.

BMW does not expect truck drivers to use Z4 Roadsters to haul car carrier trailers. On the other hand, Apple expects IT departments to replace Xserves with Mac MInis and Mac Pros. They even wrote a whitepaper about putting Mac Minis and Mac Pros in server racks. Is Apple willing to do the same thing themselves?

Where did Apple ever say that a Mini or Mac Pro was the best choice for a massive server farm?

It is possible to run a small business on OS X Server, but Apple clearly has abandoned any interest in Enterprise applications. Can you put a Mini or Mac Pro in a server rack? Sure. But that is not a recommendation to do so for EVERY possible application.

It is clear - Apple does not provide Enterprise solutions and really never has.


Really? So no one at Apple ever used Microsoft Office? Apple doesn't use the Sun systems that they're known to use? Apple hasn't used a Cray supercomputer?

I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's wrong.


So did Steve Jobs tell you his plans before he left or did you get that info from Tim Cook?


And you have no more information than the people who started this rumor. In fact, you clearly have less since you don't understand that Apple HAS used other companies' products in the past.

Nice article about the iCloud Hardware... Seems that it is mostly HP and Teradata

http://gigaom.com/cloud/the-webs-wat...es-cloud-gear/

Proof that Apple relies heavily on Windows: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/01/5th-a...ideo-and-pics/

This thread has brought me many, LOLs.

It is completely feasible that Apple would use Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS services, to provide the scaling needed, to run iCloud.

And Microsoft nor Amazon need not have anything to do with it.

Why ?

They both make APPLIANCES to place/install/configure in the data center. Self hosted appliances, which can control the virtualization and resource scaling necessary across a cloud. Apple would own the appliances, and the servers, and Microsoft/Amazon, would undoubtely have little hand in the matter.

As said before, Apple has no real Enterprise products.

For those who haven't figured it out, they use Teradata Storage Appliances (A SAN), in the North Carolina Data Center, see >> Teradata URL/

As well as NetApp solutions NetApp SAN

And solutions from HP.

You can clearly see this, from the photos of the NC Data Center, that were shown in the announcement.

Additionally, the Microsoft Azure platform, supports Linux. Apple owns the code, so they can run OS X on anything they want. Windows, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, even.

Same with the Amazon AWS services.

Besides, who knows ? They might even have a secret version of OS X server for internal use... that is easier to manipulate.

Edit: Criticize all you want, the possibility isn't unsound at all.That they may be using Appliances for Microsoft Azure and Amazon , there's 3 leaders in Virtualization, and Scaling in a cloud - Microsoft Azure (Hyper-V), Amazon AWS, and vmWare vCloud..

Ok let's think this through. What we are talking about is VPS (virtual private servers). Do you honestly think Apple is going to one by one install all the required software on each and every server. That would take a lifetime. No, if they have agreements with vendors it will be a mass deployment. If iTunes store is any indication of the iCloud service that will be running, Java Server Pages JM2EE seems most likely. Sure Webobjects, is JM2EE compliant and on multiple OS machines but how is it deployed,
that is the question?

You continued on my point. It would be insanity to manually deploy all of the necessary virtualized instances (VPS isn't really accurate, kinda sorta).

It would be sensible to create a template + a VHD image, and deploy them to the fleet That way they are standardized in configuration, which is quite handy when using replication site to site & load balancing + firewall configurations on a very large scale.

It's logical to assume it's deployed in paravirtualization, controlled by a (large number of) hypervisors. Which have load balancing between the nodes currently active, with in app caching, and such for rapid read/write access.

Virtualized instances of the software needed, scalable to meet the load of the iCloud services that are being called.

Truthfully, a large majority of the load (server load , cpu / ram) will be I/O (disk write /read) due to the storage going in and out of the SAN. Balancing that, is a cinch, really, even in large scale, thanks to the amazing Teradata application.

The other half will be bandwidth across the backplanes, of course. Especially at the edge of the network & between multiple SAN nodes.

Edit 2: do I really believe apple would do this, themselves ? Yes. Reason being, they're super secretive, and since it's apparent that HP is a major provider of computing hardware, they are a competitor of Apple, I don't find it logical to believe Apple would allow HP - to create the necessary server setups... NDA or not, people talk I think HP (and the other hardware vendors/manufacturers) would install it,. Apple employees would be trained, and we can all say, they've got some amazing engineers/sysadmins; and they'd be off on their merry way.

Edit3: the san itself could EASILY be managed, via XSAN. Just load balance the nodes, and integrate it into whatever they like... that way XSAN (which is amazing) is controlling, essentially, what goes where; what to do when disks are full etc etc

Yes. Steve Jobs said 14 years ago, "we need to get past this idea that in order for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." That was true then as it is today. Steve has no qualms partnering with Microsoft. Apple both partners with as well as competes with them. On the other hand, when Steve Ballmer sees Microsoft employees with their beloved iPhones, he gets mad and pretends to stomp on them. So I guess the no-zero-sum sentiment doesn't work both ways

There were many predictions of Apple using MiniMacs for servers.

If anything Apple would partner with Joyent (Sun reborn), VMware (cloudfront) or Akami. Azure and Amazon EC2 have had reliability issues.

If this is true it's absolutely absurd and reveals a weakness that will most definitely be exploited in the future if Apple doesn't take control of it's own server hardware situation. I wouldn't really be concerned if Apple hadn't destroyed it's own server line without ever making a serious software development commitment to it, but relying on companies that are bent on your demise to provide a critical services for you. If Apple still had and was building their server business I could at least believe that using MS and Amazon were merely stop gap measures.I guess Apple won't realize until they've helped Microsoft perfect their Cloud software for a transition to Windows 7 mobile exclusively 2-3 years from now.

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thats different as it is the same consumer space.

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It looks as tho Apple made a wise choice in depending on Amazon servers. ArsTechnica has published a report proclaiming:
"Amazon's S3 Simple Storage Service has outperformed Microsoft's Windows Azure Storage and all other major providers in an extensive study testing the feasibility of businesses using cloud services for primary storage, data protection, and disaster recovery. . . with Amazon's error rate at "effectively zero" and Microsoft close to it."

As some others have noted, Apple is smart to stick with what they know best and not try to do everything themselves.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news...orage-test.ars

You mean *some* Mac users choose not to use Windows. It's not an either/or proposition.