Google Wins Injunction Against Agency Using Microsoft Cloud 187
jfruhlinger writes "A judge has granted an injunction stopping the US Department of the Interior from moving forward with the adoption of Microsoft's cloud services. The injunction was sought by Google, which of course has its own suite of cloud offerings. Google claimed that the Interior Dept. failed to consider other options as required."
No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No attempts at finding other sources? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, a lot of stuff sold to consumers is actually better than "mil spec". Disclosure: I used to work for a major aerospace and defense contractor.
Re:Thats no cloud (Score:0, Interesting)
Don't fool yourself, most government data centers have colossal Windows infrastructure. I myself work in the colossal UNIX (linux these days) department. We also have a colossal mainframe department.
The Windows department is probably about 10,000 Midrange size servers of which many are liquid cooled. Think the highest end HP servers, like DL785's, etc. In UNIX we are migrating from SPARC to x64 now, but it used to be you could tell if you were walking down a row of Windows servers because the x86 was always hotter, so I always try and navigate down SPARC rows (or through SPARC rooms) in the data center because they are usually a nice 74 degrees instead of about 82-85. Frankly I don't even know what all these Windows servers do, but I do know a large part is serving "customers", which happens to be the average Joe who works here with a Windows machine on their desk, which is pretty much everyone. So a large part perform Microsoft OS related things, many are functioning as some kind of Middleware application server, etc.
This is really big news because Obama'a US CIO announced a few weeks ago that he wants to shut down about 500 data centers like this and move to "cloud computing". It was kind of sketchy if he was thinking of using Amazon, building their own, etc. But now we know that Microsoft has some kind of agreement with the US to provide cloud computing services. The thing to find out is what kind of infrastructure does Microsoft have - I bet it is HP. The shitloads of money that is going to be made off this is hard to comprehend. Microsoft is a major player in the cloud computing arena.
The above statement makes it look like the US is going to give Microsoft a few trillion to provide cloud computing services. A few google searches illuminates what is going on - the government has thrown "cloud computing" contracts into the air, and corporations will grab them, hopefully for them the biggest ones. For example the GSA just went with Unisys. We know from this article the Dept of the Interior went Microsoft. I would suspect Amazon, HP, and Google are going to be major players.
The subject of what should new/young people think about in IT comes up often, like "should I learn basic/java" or "should I mainly learn Punjabi", etc. A new person should definately look into cloud computing - there are going to be many, many careers on many levels coming out of this, it is a huge industry and is also new and exciting (even though it is kind of a buzzword for craploads of machines running something like Xen behind load balancers, which is what we have anyway).
Varability is another component (Score:4, Interesting)
As an example I've played around with DIY audio stuff and something that lots of enthusiasts like using is Vishay-Dale milspec resistors. Seems kinda silly, using milspec resistors in something like a headphone amp, until you look at their properties. You can get them with extremely tight tolerances, and with low variance over temperatures. They are very good if you want to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting over a wide range of conditions. They are also good at dealing with the unexpected. Like maybe you are worried that the power might be able to momentary exceed the resistors rating. No problem, the milspec parts deal with that, a 1/4 watt resistor can actually handle 1/2 watt with no damage, at least for a bit.
Now you may well not need to buy milspec parts to get that, however those parts DO get you that. Their milspec resistors are above and beyond normal cheap resistors in what they are willing to certify. When the idea is hand building something with very tight tolerances (in the case of an audio amp tightly matched tolerances means the amp should have a minimal impact on the sound) it is a choice that can make sense.
Then, speaking of tolerances and variability, even within the line there are differences. You may find that for a given type of 1/4 watt 1k resistor you can get it in 1%, 0.5% and 0.1% at an ever increasing price. They all seem to be made the same, it isn't like the 0.1% is a different design, like some of the really high precision ones. Well the deal is that when they make them, they come out different. So they test them and batch them. If you buy 1% parts, they are only guaranteeing the resistance to be between 1000 and 1010 ohms. Good enough for most uses, however if you need it tighter they sell ones that are tested to be closer to 1000 ohms and guaranteed, hence the tighter ratings. Costs more though, as many of them don't come out that perfect.