Re: EC2 alternatives

On Jul 9, 2008, at 10:26 PM, Chris Sears wrote:

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Michael Sheehan wrote:

How do you see it as being unenforceable?

Microsoft holds the service provider (not the customer) accountable for making sure the proper licenses have been purchased. Bring your own license is basicly the honor system. How could Amazon make sure cusomters weren't using stolen/pirated/warez CD keys? It couldn't without checking each Windows OS image before it started it up and even then there's no way for Amazon to know if a CD key is legit or not.

There are ways to do this that are 'legitimate'. OEM manufacturers do it all the time with WinPE/SYSPREP. It's just a big hassle and you have to know what you are doing. We did it with an earlier (pre-CloudScale) product that focused on VMware. You could 'bring your own license'. The biggest impediment to this is that there are multiple flavors of Windows / Windows Server that use *different* licensing schemes, so you wind up in a position where you have a perfectly valid Windows Server license, but you can't install it onto an image because of the media they used. But again, as you point out, no good way for Amazon to enforce that you installed a legitimate license. It could someone else's Volume License Key for example.

Microsoft should really fix these kinds of issues.

Put another way, would GoGrid allow me to upload my own custom Windows image (using NT 4.0 or Server 2008 for example) just like Amazon allows EC2 users to run custom AMI's? Of course not.

Yep, if they hold the service provider accountable. Hopefully they will wise up soon. I suspect they will as they try to figure out their own cloud strategy.

There are a lot of other factors that also come into play, like licensing other MS apps/servers that run on top of Windows (sql server, biztalk, sharepoint, exchange), the many different licensing programs available under MS licensing (retail, open, ea, select, spla), and the different VM licenses grants allowed under the higher-end editions of Windows. In short, it's a complicated mess. I'm sure your lawyers can fill you in on the additional details if you're interested.

Yes, it's a mess, which also means an opportunity for people who can help to solve it. A non-trivial task on Windows.

--Randy

Randy Bias, Founder, CloudScale

(877) 636-8589, randyb@cloudscale.net

blog: http://neotactics.com/blog

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Re: EC2 alternatives

Michael,

At the risk of boring the list with the intricacies of Microsoft licensing, I'll try to give you some brief answers inline...

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Michael Sheehan wrote:

Just to jump in here quickly (please educate me). How is this different than using VMWare to install Windows?

It's not. The exact same licensing rules apply to any OS virtualization technology (VMWare, Xen, Hyper-V).

To start answering my own question, I guess that with personal installs, you BYOD (D being Disk/CD/DVD) that has the Windows installer/media on it. I would think that Microsoft might actually want other channels to distribute their OS.

They're not really hurting for distribution channels actually. And with VM images, you don't go through a normal OS install process. You install once when you create the image and then you work with snapshots or clones of that image. Standard Windows server retail licenses don't allow you to run multiple copies using the same CD key. Each VM would need a seperate license.

How do you see it as being unenforceable?

Microsoft holds the service provider (not the customer) accountable for making sure the proper licenses have been purchased. Bring your own license is basicly the honor system. How could Amazon make sure cusomters weren't using stolen/pirated/warez CD keys? It couldn't without checking each Windows OS image before it started it up and even then there's no way for Amazon to know if a CD key is legit or not.

Beyond that, Microsoft requires different licenses depending on how you're using Windows and/or the number of devices or users connecting to the server. Under their service provider licensing, you can get either Authenticated or Unauthenticated processor licenses depending on wheather the application running on the system is accessed by named users or anonymous users (like web visitors). Or you can Client Access Licenses (CALs) for each user or device that will be connecting to the server. That's a lot of detail that Amazon has no interest in getting into for each instance it spins up.

Put another way, would GoGrid allow me to upload my own custom Windows image (using NT 4.0 or Server 2008 for example) just like Amazon allows EC2 users to run custom AMI's? Of course not.

Run the server until you have to activate it and then you supply the appropriate license information. Can't you download trials of Windows Server 2003?

Using unactivated or trial versions of Windows in production is a license violation. Remember that this whole situation is a legal one, not a techincal one. I don't think Amazon's lawyers would let that slide.

We (at GoGrid) have found that a LOT of our customers are installing Windows Cloud Servers simply because Amazon doesn't offer it. I would say about 50% of GoGrid installs are actually with Windows believe it
or not. But we are able to do this because we are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

Most dedicated server hosting companies issue unauthenticated processor licenses for customer boxes/VMs using the Microsoft Service Provider licensing agreement (SPLA), which any MS Partner has access to (gold certified or not).

I strongly suspect you guys are doing the same thing. Your own KB article on MS SQL licensing implies you are doing licensing tracking, paying MS for each license used, and billing customers accordingly. If not, you can expect a knock on your door from MS Licensing or the BSA any day now.

There are a lot of other factors that also come into play, like licensing other MS apps/servers that run on top of Windows (sql server, biztalk, sharepoint, exchange), the many different licensing programs available under MS licensing (retail, open, ea, select, spla), and the different VM licenses grants allowed under the higher-end editions of Windows. In short, it's a complicated mess. I'm sure your lawyers can fill you in on the additional details if you're interested.

- Chris

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Re: EC2 alternatives

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:38 AM, Randy Bias wrote:
>
> On Jul 7, 2008, at 2:26 AM, Max wrote:
>> I am wondering if there is alternatives to Ec2?
>
> For virtual machines:
>
> GoGrid
> FlexiScale
> Joyent (no API)
> Gridlayer

For virtual machines, you can also take a look at CollabNet CUBiT. It
supports virtualization on different platforms, Windows, Linux and
Solaris. The system can also be used to manage clouds, wherein you can
provision one or more virtual machines from the cloud for defined time
frame. After the specified timeframe the system can be automatically
de-commissioned and such.

It also has the ability to integrate with EC2. IOW, you can provision
EC2 machines from within CUBiT. It also provide Rest based web service
APIs. Using the API the user can provision a host/EC2 node, rebuild
using any OS, reboot the host, etc.
--
Regards,
Bhuvaneswaran A
www.livecipher.com
GPG: 0x7A13E5B0

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