Microsoft Azure platform 'much more evolved' than OpenStack says CTO Russinovich

Supporting OpenStack 'makes no sense' for Microsoft at this point, says cloud chief

Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich has stated that Microsoft's cloud computing software standard on Azure is "much more evolved" than the growing industry open source standard OpenStack, suggesting it "doesn't make sense" for Microsoft to join its peers in supporting the platform.

Speaking to Computing at Microsoft's TechEd Europe conference in Barcelona today, Russinovich spoke of how he saw OpenStack - already supported by HP, IBM and Rackspace, among others - as a challenge to adopt.

"I think [OpenStack] is an interesting one, but an extremely challenging one to build up. Cloud platform as an open model, especially with the dynamic of lots of companies stacked up trying to leverage it and wanting to take it, and innovate on it. This is at odds with the consistent platform message that OpenStack wants to carry with it."

But Russinovich maintains that Microsoft - despite offering its own hybrid cloud software such as Cloud Platform System [CPS] for Dell hardware - is not completely distancing itself from OpenStack. It just "doesn't make sense at this point" to go there.

"It's something we're watching really closely," he told Computing, before adding:

"Of course, we started our cloud platform many, many years ago and it's been evolving for a long time.

"Even if OpenStack was something compelling we could drop in and switch our infrastructure over to, the fact is our infrastructure is much more evolved than where OpenStack is today," said Russinovich.

"Adopting it doesn't make sense at this point."

Russinovich said many Microsoft customers are experimenting with OpenStack, or even using it heavily, but that "each one has very different OpenStack deployments".

"[We find] that OpenStack has been complex and hard for them to stand up and manage, and they've got lots of really good talent that they've put on the problem of running OpenStack deployments. In many cases, they're not even using OpenStack APIs directly in any case.

"So when we consider the best service for customers coming to Azure, an obvious question is ‘Should we support OpenStack API?' And from what we've seen, that doesn't make a lot of sense."

Nevertheless, Russinovich claimed that Microsoft is still "waiting and seeing for a clear signal on what we should do" as OpenStack continues to divide the cloud world.