The Cloud Battle, A War to Sell Data Center Bits - Amazon, Google, Microsoft

This time of year is turning into a Cloud Battle, a war between Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to deliver bits as a service from data centers. iPhone vs. Android is a battle of mobile bits.  OS X vs. Windows 7/8/10 is a battle of desktop bits.  The Cloud is a battle to deliver bits as a service from data centers.

Microsoft had their cloud, and Google just finished theirs.  Next week is AWS Reinvent.  The media covers the battles.

Google's Newest Attack On Amazon

• JILLIAN D'ONFRO

• NOV. 4, 2014, 9:34 AM
• 9,656
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When I read so many of the media articles though I think they are focused on how big fleet is or the latest technology.  Huh?  Like this article makes the point of measuring the naval power by the tonnage of the fleet misses the point.

Measuring Naval Power: Bigger Ain’t Always Better

Aggregate tonnage alone doesn’t win naval battles in the modern era, and suggesting otherwise is dangerous.

By James R. Holmes

April 12, 2014

...

Navies were largely symmetrical in those thrilling days of yesteryear. That simplified matters. Size was a decent proxy for fighting power when battle fleets made up largely of capital ships bearing big guns squared off. That was before the era — an era that persists to this day — when small craft could carry armament comparable to that of capital ships. A destroyer couldn’t tote big guns back then. A lowly missile boat or sub can fire munitions comparable to those of a capital ship today — and to the same deadly effect.

I have got a chance to close hand see how executives at Google (Urs Hoelzle), Amazon (Werner Vogel), and Microsoft (Scott Guthrie) perform at Gigaom Structure on stage and behind.  It’s kind of like seeing the Generals/Admirals of the military.

This is not a simple battle where more servers and more MW of data center capacity win the war.  How well your team operates using the technology which in the case of the bits (software) was created by other team members is so important.

I think I could write a whole book on the battles between between Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. In fact, I am sure there is someone who has already made a book proposal for this.  Unfortunately or fortunately, I am too busy working on other things to document things in an entertaining way to sell a book.  What I can do is watch as an observer to see strategies being played.

The Cloud Battle may be one of the most interesting technology wars fought with billions of dollars of data centers and IT equipment and 10,000s of development staff, reaching around the world.

Below is Google’s Points of Presence.

Oh, one point I do want to make that I forgot is.  Just like Sun Tzu the Art of War Point 18.  “All warfare is based on deception”  The good know how to deceive the enemy and they can use the media to spread the deception.  Don’t believe everything you read.

18. All warfare is based on deception.

Microsoft puts ex-Amazon VP in charge of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations, including data centers

Last week Microsoft put an ex-Amazon.com VP in charge of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations.  I’ve had e-mail conversations on the changes with lots of people asking questions, but I couldn’t write anything.  Well, now I can blog something because of public disclosure.  Suresh Kumar, VP of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations updated his LinkedIn profile.

Last week Suresh’s linkedin profile only showed Suresh’s Amazon experience even though he had been at Microsoft for months and his job change to Microsoft was not added yet.

VP, Worldwide Retail Systems and Retail Services

Amazon

August 2008 – May 2014 (5 years 10 months)Greater Seattle Area

As the Vice President of Worldwide Retail Systems, managed a global team of 500 engineers across seven locations, including four Vice Presidents of Technology and twelve Engineering Directors. Responsible for technology that powers core retail functions such as pricing, promotions, catalog and vendor management for all Amazon properties worldwide. Responsible for all aspects of technology, including program management, software development, testing, support, operations and business analytics. 

As the Retail CTO, responsible for establishing software architecture standards, and maintaining consistency in hiring and leveling of senior engineering talent across all retail divisions. Responsible for setting architecture direction for all Amazon retail subsidiaries and integrating subsidiaries into the Amazon technology stack.

As head of Retail Services, currently managing a team of 2000 associates across nine centers and twenty product imaging studios worldwide, responsible for creating and maintaining all item information, including item images for products sold by Amazon retail.

Now there are these two entries.

Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud Infrastructure and Operations

Microsoft

October 2014 – Present (1 month)Redmond, WA

Responsible for designing, building and operating the infrastructure that power's Microsoft's cloud; the engineering systems required for automating and optimizing the processes associated with the planning and management of the cloud infrastructure.

Corporate Vice President

Microsoft

June 2014 – September 2014 (4 months)Redmond, WA

There are many more details, but the above is all I could find that has been published.  

Will be interesting to see how Suresh does in his role at Microsoft. He has a background that is different than many and I didn’t find any data center experience in his background.

Princeton University

PhD, Engineering

1987 – 1992

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Bachelor of Technology (BTech), Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering

1983 – 1987

...

· Ten patents on work related to mobile computers. Three patents on collaborative computing, one on cryptography and one on electronic auctions. Several patent applications on e-commerce are pending.

AWS's unexplained reboot degrades Trust, Wake up and Focus on Improving Trust

AWS is secretive about its running of AWS.  Last night I saw that AWS was going to reboot a bunch of their EC2 instances on friday.

Yikes: Big Amazon Web Services reboot on the way Friday

by Barb Darrow

10 HOURS AGO

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photo: Shutterstock / Zalstolskiy Victor

SUMMARY:

Many Amazon Web Services customers will soon be subjected to a reboot of their EC2 instances — but no one outside of AWS knows why.

This morning others in the press spread the news.

AWS users fret over downtime ahead of Amazon's massive EC2 reboot ZDNet - ‎2 hours ago‎ Some AWS users have also expressed concern on the AWS user forum that they've been given too short notice to monitor services that may be affected during the maintenance event. Meanwhile, others have commended AWS for forcing a reboot at the ...    AWS issuing 'urgent patch' to EC2 instances Computer Business Review - ‎1 hour ago‎ AWS has said that not all instances of the impacted instance types will be rebooted. 2. If you relaunch an instance before the maintenance, you are not guaranteed to get an already-patched host." T1, T2, M2, R3, and HS1 instance types will not be affected.    Cue The Cloud Naysayers--Amazon Web Services Set To Nuke Bulk Servers Forbes - ‎9 hours ago‎ The details, according to Von Eicken, are that Amazon Web Services (AWS) notified its customers today, Sept 24, that it will be rolling out an urgent patch to all hosts causing a maintenance reboot of nearly all EC2 instances starting September 26, 2014 and ...

So what is the big deal?  There is speculation the reboot is for security issues.  Whatever is the reason Amazon is not saying now.

Does this improve or degrade trust in Amazon?  

Don’t you think the messaging would be different if Amazon focused on improving trust in its cloud?

Amazon Announces 300ppi Kindle Voyage, $199, shipping Oct 21, 2014

The Kindle is part of my regular reading and today Amazon announced the Kindle Voyage.

I live in Seattle and have known many friends who joined Amazon.  I use amazon.com for business and home supplies with 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime.  So I am regularly on amazon.com, and saw the Voyage was available to order.  And being able to have 300ppi black and white text is so geeky for those who worked on printing technology.

Momentum Builds for what the smart people know, Moving out of AWS Can be a good Move

AWS’s slowing growth is all over the news.  Here are two different views of what is causing the slowing growth.  

The NYtimes’s Quentin Hardy says the problem is AWS needs a bigger sales team for the business market.  

What Amazon’s service does have is a great roster of named clients, and probably lots more companies that aren’t ready to admit somebody else runs their computers. It has an enormous cloud and a technical understanding of global-scale computing that is second to none. All it needs is a bigger sales team for businesses and a way to get its checks signed faster.

Zynga and Sony moved out of AWS years ago.  

Lessons from Zynga & Sony on moving from Amazon AWS

Published on March 14, 2012 by Nati Shalom in Cloud, Cloud Computing, EC2, GigaSpaces, OpenStack, syndicated

Earlier this month Zynga announced its move from Amazon AWS to its own private Z-Cloud. Sony also started to move increasing parts of its workload from Amazon to Rackspace OpenStack.

There isn't so much in common between these different use cases, except for the fact that they may indicate the beginning of a trend (I’ll get back to that toward the end) where companies start to take more control over their cloud infrastructure.

So what really brought Zynga and Sony to make such a move?

MOZ dumped AWS.

Moz Dumps Amazon Web Services, Citing Expense and ‘Lacking’ Service

[Updated, 1/31/14, 12:01 pm] Seattle marketing technology company Moz had a worse-than-expected 2013 in terms of profitability and products. But what really jumped out at me in the privately held company’s startlingly frank review of the year was new CEO Sarah Bird’s blunt criticism of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which she says the company is leaving for reasons of cost, product stability, and service.

Gigaom’s Barb Darrow says the AWS problem is companies are leaving AWS, prices are dropping, and competition is intense.

First let’s start with the facts.

 AWS sales dipped this quarter. Amazon announced Thursday that for its second quarter, which ended June 30, the category that includes AWS saw a 3 percent sequential revenue slip. That “other” category — which also includes advertising services and co-branded credit card agreements — also logged 38 percent growth year over year. That sounds great until you realize year-over-year growth in the first quarter was 60 percent. There have been other slight quarterly dips in the category’s otherwise relentless rise over the past few years, but they’ve mostly happened between fourth and first quarters.

The news is starting to leak that another company has joined the move out of AWS.

However, a source familiar with Dropbox’s current strategy said the company lately has been moving more of its IT infrastructure away from AWS and onto its own turf. There are now 10,000 servers in Dropbox facilities running loads that had been on Amazon EC2, although it’s not clear what percentage of Dropbox’s computing requirements that represents. Dropbox is currently storing data both in its own data centers and on Amazon S3 until the end of the year, this source said.

In closing Barb thinks AWS’s future has more pressure.

So as rival public cloud powers add services and cut prices, and as more customers see the benefits of hybrid as opposed to pure public cloud computing, expect the pressure on AWS to ratchet up.

AWS is in an out war with for the cloud with Google, Microsoft, and many others.  

With this news of Dropbox moving out I would not want to be an internal AWS employee.  Jeff Bezos has got to be livid.  When internal PR shows the NYTimes saying all we need is more sales people I doubt that would calm the troops.