Hmm...sounds like a plausible rumors but unlikely. Steve Jobs was proud to state that Apple controls the whole ball of wax from soup to nuts. You see that with their consumer electronic devices. The iCloud will be no different. If anything, this is a temporary solution. SQL Azure does support NOSQL databases so they could be handling that piece and the API piece for vendors to build on could be what Amazon is handling.
What this rumor is suggesting is that Apple doesn't have the server technology to make a farm to support iCould. That's strange since Apple easily supports iTunes, Ping, MobileMe, the App Stores, etc from their current data centers. Though for Apple's data center they'll need density which either means Apple is buying 3rd party hardware or customizing their own suited to their needs.
You can bet if Apple is using Microsoft and Amazon then that is a short term solution until their data centers are up and fully functional. The costs for Windows and SQL Azure are not cheap and I'd imagine that Amazon is not either so they'd want to bring that in-house on cost alone.
Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell
And there is the API aspect of azure
I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps
What??? You mean Apple isn't a not-invented-here we-gotta-build-our-own-everything-to-compete-with-everybody company like Microsoft?
Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.
Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.
What is really interesting is that this is not something that was done yesterday. Azure is fairly new and if you consider the development time apple must have been the first customer if not there before the official announcement.
This must have been something tim cook did a long time ago. Not the new data center guy. This would have been in development long before he came on board
Years ago I alpha tested some software for Microsoft that is very similar to cloud. Only difference is that it was a private p2p client for your own personal use. Kind of like dropbox. I left my pc on at home when I went on vacation and sent all my photos to it automatically. You specify a folder and anything you dump in there syncs to all your computers.
If true, I am disappointed in Apple. They have the capital to do this right, getting ~20-100 co-lo sites across the globe and keeping a dedicated team working on it. It can even be a business unit they spin off later.
Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.
Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
No expertise? I'd think iTunes Store in and of itself qualifies Apple as an expertise in running services from the cloud.
Correct.
That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.
Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.
Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.
Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
It seems to me that proclamation is more about not having to personally deal with Microsoft Products sets on a day-to-day basis. On that basis, this Azure/Amazon revelation should really be a non-issue. Apple will always be the facade, what backs it should be irrelevant. Just like iTunes.
For some reason it's got people on both sides frothing at the mouth. For the fanboys, some clearly perceive this as some sort of Crying Game realisation. Truth is, as pointed out, Apple really is only at the design end of the game. None of their stuff is end to end. And with capable third parties able to fill the gaps seamlessly, why should they even try to be end-to-end?
So Apple built their massive new data center for what, exactly? Oh yeah, for hosting iCloud. Still, I can hardly blame Microsoft and Amazon for making a ludicrous attempt to grab some glory on their way out of the limelight. Why AppleInsider is reporting this bullshit is another question.
No they aren't using Microsoft's FreeBSD servers nor Amazon's FreeBSD servers.
They'll use their own FreeBSD servers in their own Data Centers and allow them to interact with Microsoft and Amazon.
That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.
Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.
Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.
Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.
Apple's been run on Sun for 20 years, not to mention FreeBSD.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
I'm sure that some do, but to be fair, I suspect that even the most rabid of them are referring to the hardware they own or use and the software running on it.
As many posters have pointed out, it is kind of silly to expect Apple to design and manufacture everything that they use. It would not be good business in many cases, and good business is where they excel.
Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell
And there is the API aspect of azure
I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps
Actually Microsoft only has 2 North American data centers dedicated to Azure. One is in Austin Texas and another in the Great Lakes area. I just came back from an MS architect's meeting in Denver on the topic of Azure. There's 2 more in Europe and another 2 in Asia.
What's the API aspect of Azure that you're alluding to? Apple will be publishing their own APIs for web services. It doesn't make sense to publish our own and then translate to another venders.
What kind of latency issue are you refering too? Are you going to notice it when syncing your data on your iPhone as compared to 1000s of corporation running billions of transactions with Azure? And who said Apple only has one data center? iTunes, Ping, the Apple Store etc are hosted somewhere. Apple has other data centers as this link attests to http://gigaom.com/cloud/apple-launch...hat-powers-it/. Makes no sense to believe that they don't already have data centers around the world for their current online offerings.
Neither of the above is correct. Apple does not serve the enterprise server market and apparently has no desire to do so. While at one time they dabbled with it, they are no longer selling a server for applications like this. Apple is wise enough to 'stick to its knitting' and do the things it does well while outsourcing the things it doesn't.
It's similar to Sony. Sony makes PCs, but you can be sure that Sony's backbone operations are not run on Sony PCs. Sony's PCs are consumer-oriented products and if they do anything with businesses, it's no more than small business operations which really operate like home computers.
It's really about time that people learned that 'computers' is not a single market and there's no rule that someone has to participate in every computer market segment.
The difference between Apple and Sony is that Apple is also trying to sell its own operating system. Unlike Sony, Apple is the only company which makes computers that run Mac OS legally. Apple IS the Mac platform, which means there are higher expectations for Apple to use its own products, especially its own operating system and servers.
Furthermore, Apple likes to tout the fact that by making both the hardware and the operating system, they reduce finger pointing between different vendors-- something which often occurs with Windows PCs. This should also apply to servers. And one would expect that Apple servers should be able to support Mac users better than Windows servers can. This is one reason why IT departments want a complete hardware+software server solution from Apple that is on par with Windows based server solutions.
I would be curious to know how Apple's IT operations are managed. Does Apple practice IT management like most enterprise IT departments, or do they just let everyone do whatever they want on company computers? How many employees and computers does Apple's IT department support? What is the percentage of Macs vs. PCs at Apple? Are the Macs joined to a domain, and what do they use for a domain server? Are their domain servers Mac Minis running Lion Server and Open Directory? Or are they Windows servers with Active Directory, or something else?
I think Apple needs a back-up service if anything goes wrong in SC. To have two is for absolute security.
Both Amazon and Microsoft have server farms all over the world which provides additional security to prevent failure in the US to harm Apple?s iCloud service in the rest of the world. Remember that Apple gets more than two thirds of their income from outside the USA.
Butt.... Butt.... What about the MacPro and its capabilities. Massive MacPro's in a massive building with massive power and massive Steve Smiling on them all. See ya at the Mother ship Steve.
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.
Comments
Ever see a Mac ad?
So Asure doesn't run on Windows?
a server farm isn't a personal computer. hence his point.
Hmm...sounds like a plausible rumors but unlikely. Steve Jobs was proud to state that Apple controls the whole ball of wax from soup to nuts. You see that with their consumer electronic devices. The iCloud will be no different. If anything, this is a temporary solution. SQL Azure does support NOSQL databases so they could be handling that piece and the API piece for vendors to build on could be what Amazon is handling.
What this rumor is suggesting is that Apple doesn't have the server technology to make a farm to support iCould. That's strange since Apple easily supports iTunes, Ping, MobileMe, the App Stores, etc from their current data centers. Though for Apple's data center they'll need density which either means Apple is buying 3rd party hardware or customizing their own suited to their needs.
You can bet if Apple is using Microsoft and Amazon then that is a short term solution until their data centers are up and fully functional. The costs for Windows and SQL Azure are not cheap and I'd imagine that Amazon is not either so they'd want to bring that in-house on cost alone.
Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell
And there is the API aspect of azure
I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps
What??? You mean Apple isn't a not-invented-here we-gotta-build-our-own-everything-to-compete-with-everybody company like Microsoft?
Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.
Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.
This must have been something tim cook did a long time ago. Not the new data center guy. This would have been in development long before he came on board
Years ago I alpha tested some software for Microsoft that is very similar to cloud. Only difference is that it was a private p2p client for your own personal use. Kind of like dropbox. I left my pc on at home when I went on vacation and sent all my photos to it automatically. You specify a folder and anything you dump in there syncs to all your computers.
...so why haven't we been able to have access to Amazon via our ATV2 ?!
I seem to be using this image a lot recently. I seriously doubt that it's a failing on my part.
Isn't it amazing how much the haters are getting worked up about this.
Maybe Apple should start building their own delivery trucks. And airplanes to import the computers. And refrigerators for their cafeteria. And their own refineries for the fuel to drive their delivery trucks and airplanes.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
+1
nuf said
No expertise? I'd think iTunes Store in and of itself qualifies Apple as an expertise in running services from the cloud.
Correct.
That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.
Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.
Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.
Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
It seems to me that proclamation is more about not having to personally deal with Microsoft Products sets on a day-to-day basis. On that basis, this Azure/Amazon revelation should really be a non-issue. Apple will always be the facade, what backs it should be irrelevant. Just like iTunes.
For some reason it's got people on both sides frothing at the mouth. For the fanboys, some clearly perceive this as some sort of Crying Game realisation. Truth is, as pointed out, Apple really is only at the design end of the game. None of their stuff is end to end. And with capable third parties able to fill the gaps seamlessly, why should they even try to be end-to-end?
So Apple built their massive new data center for what, exactly? Oh yeah, for hosting iCloud. Still, I can hardly blame Microsoft and Amazon for making a ludicrous attempt to grab some glory on their way out of the limelight. Why AppleInsider is reporting this bullshit is another question.
No they aren't using Microsoft's FreeBSD servers nor Amazon's FreeBSD servers.
They'll use their own FreeBSD servers in their own Data Centers and allow them to interact with Microsoft and Amazon.
Correct.
That's why after the MobileMe team bungled their launch, the head of that group was demoted and was replaced by the person who ran the iTunes Store. More recently, Apple gave that person 100,000 Restricted Stock Units as a retention bonus. His name is Eddy Cue.
Eddy knows how to run cloud services and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who lobbied for multiple third-party services to help host iCloud.
Apple certainly has the financial resources to build and run everything themselves, however in reality, it's probably more reliable and safer to spread the load onto multiple service operators and domains. If a DDoS attack takes out Apple's servers, there are still AWS and Azure servers to shoulder the load.
Apple has been running their MobileMe mail service on big iron: Oracle/Sun. They know that certain scenarios call for outside partnerships (e.g., manufacturing), they aren't stupidly trying to do everything themselves like they did in the mid-Nineties.
Apple's been run on Sun for 20 years, not to mention FreeBSD.
it works both ways. Don't some Apple lovers also make a big deal and proclaim how 100 percent free from Microsoft they are because they never use any Microsoft Office products or never have to run Windows applications on their Macs? Yet they neglect things like their internet service provider which may run on Microsoft, their power company which may run on Microsoft, the house they live in which was probably designed on Windows PCs, the cars they drive which were probably designed on Windows PCs, the banks they keep their money in, the hospitals where they receive medical treatment, and so forth.
I'm sure that some do, but to be fair, I suspect that even the most rabid of them are referring to the hardware they own or use and the software running on it.
As many posters have pointed out, it is kind of silly to expect Apple to design and manufacture everything that they use. It would not be good business in many cases, and good business is where they excel.
Apple has one data center. Microsoft has dozens. People sending data from California to the east coast would be latency hell
And there is the API aspect of azure
I bet when the new map product goes live ms will host the backend as well. Bing maps is a lot better than google maps
Actually Microsoft only has 2 North American data centers dedicated to Azure. One is in Austin Texas and another in the Great Lakes area. I just came back from an MS architect's meeting in Denver on the topic of Azure. There's 2 more in Europe and another 2 in Asia.
What's the API aspect of Azure that you're alluding to? Apple will be publishing their own APIs for web services. It doesn't make sense to publish our own and then translate to another venders.
What kind of latency issue are you refering too? Are you going to notice it when syncing your data on your iPhone as compared to 1000s of corporation running billions of transactions with Azure? And who said Apple only has one data center? iTunes, Ping, the Apple Store etc are hosted somewhere. Apple has other data centers as this link attests to http://gigaom.com/cloud/apple-launch...hat-powers-it/. Makes no sense to believe that they don't already have data centers around the world for their current online offerings.
deleted
Neither of the above is correct. Apple does not serve the enterprise server market and apparently has no desire to do so. While at one time they dabbled with it, they are no longer selling a server for applications like this. Apple is wise enough to 'stick to its knitting' and do the things it does well while outsourcing the things it doesn't.
It's similar to Sony. Sony makes PCs, but you can be sure that Sony's backbone operations are not run on Sony PCs. Sony's PCs are consumer-oriented products and if they do anything with businesses, it's no more than small business operations which really operate like home computers.
It's really about time that people learned that 'computers' is not a single market and there's no rule that someone has to participate in every computer market segment.
The difference between Apple and Sony is that Apple is also trying to sell its own operating system. Unlike Sony, Apple is the only company which makes computers that run Mac OS legally. Apple IS the Mac platform, which means there are higher expectations for Apple to use its own products, especially its own operating system and servers.
Furthermore, Apple likes to tout the fact that by making both the hardware and the operating system, they reduce finger pointing between different vendors-- something which often occurs with Windows PCs. This should also apply to servers. And one would expect that Apple servers should be able to support Mac users better than Windows servers can. This is one reason why IT departments want a complete hardware+software server solution from Apple that is on par with Windows based server solutions.
I would be curious to know how Apple's IT operations are managed. Does Apple practice IT management like most enterprise IT departments, or do they just let everyone do whatever they want on company computers? How many employees and computers does Apple's IT department support? What is the percentage of Macs vs. PCs at Apple? Are the Macs joined to a domain, and what do they use for a domain server? Are their domain servers Mac Minis running Lion Server and Open Directory? Or are they Windows servers with Active Directory, or something else?
Both Amazon and Microsoft have server farms all over the world which provides additional security to prevent failure in the US to harm Apple?s iCloud service in the rest of the world. Remember that Apple gets more than two thirds of their income from outside the USA.
Butt.... Butt.... What about the MacPro and its capabilities. Massive MacPro's in a massive building with massive power and massive Steve Smiling on them all. See ya at the Mother ship Steve.
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.