Azure Is Better at Hybrid Computing Because AWS Is an Orchid

December 12, 2019

There’s an interesting explanation of the DoD’s JEDI award in “Opinion: Microsoft Fairly and Squarely Beat Amazon in $10 Billion Pentagon Cloud Contract.” The reason is:

In 2017, Microsoft designed Azure Stack to meet hybrid cloud computing needs, a distinction from AWS, which was designed for cloud-only computing needs without the flexibility of leveraging on-premise servers. That has led Amazon to chase Microsoft with hybrid-cloud offerings such as AWS Outposts, which launched in November of 2018 — well after the Pentagon bid had been opened. As of the first half of 2019, Microsoft was the only company among the top three cloud providers that has a generally available hybrid cloud. Microsoft’s Windows operating system has run on servers for decades, and it was a natural extension to offer Azure Cloud to run on-premise. Microsoft’s hybrid strategy has resulted in 95% of Fortune 500 companies using Azure today. That is a staggering statistic, which shows the superiority of hybrid cloud compared with traditional cloud computing. As J.B. Hunt, one of Azure’s Fortune 500 customers, said: “Microsoft didn’t ask us to bend to their vision of a cloud.”

Amazon is unlikely to agree. Amazon’s lawyers definitely will view this explanation as insufficiently developed to justify dropping the lawsuit.

The problem is that “one throat to choke” seems like a great idea. But the reality is that there usually are many throats to choke regardless of who is the contract winner.

The idea of a common platform or framework, data harmonization, and smooth access control are easy to talk about.

Reality is a little more chaotic. Read the original write up and decide. Then consider how likely it is that a single individual or a small business has a single throat to choke when something goes wrong. Throat choking is preceded by finger pointing, and none of the technology giants deliver reliability, ease of use, and fantasy land solutions.

Reality. Messy. Azure is a hybrid. AWS is an orchid. Neither is guaranteed a long, healthy existence if the gardener forgets to water the plants, the insects decide to chow down, or a road grader grind ouy a new information highway.

Lawyers? Guaranteed money. Other parties? Not guaranteed much.

Probably not.

Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2019

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