Welcome to the third episode
of Inside Azure for IT.
I'm Erin Chapple,
CVP of Azure Core Product and Design.
We'll focus this episode on discussing
two of my favorite subjects:
open source and Linux.
Open source plays a critical role
in enterprise digital transformation.
For over a decade, Microsoft has adopted
an open source approach
as part of our own evolution.
I want to give you a peek behind
the curtains of Microsoft's approach,
and how we brought together
customers, partners
and communities
to innovate and collaborate
across open source technologies.
Now, before we dive in,
remember this is part
three of a three part episode.
In part one,
I spoke with Mike Evans
and Xavier Lecauchois from Red
Hat about our joint product offering
and how we're working together
to help customers
with their cloud modernization
and migration journeys.
In part two, Krishna Ganugapati
and Brendan Burns
joined me to share insights
on why we built our own
internal Linux distribution
for Azure engineers to build services on,
how we're bringing more consistency
and transparency
with Linux and open source services.
And in this third segment,
I'm excited to introduce a guest
who has dedicated
most of her career to open source.
Sarah Novotny,
the director of open source
strategy for Azure.
We'll discuss running open
source technologies in the cloud,
the relationship
between IT and developers
to enable open source innovation
and Microsoft’s leadership
and contributions to help secure
open source software.
Welcome, Sarah.
Lovely to be here, Erin,
and actually to see you in person. It’s so fun!
I'm so excited and what a great reason
to get together, discussing
and recognizing all the contributions
of the community minded innovators
with whom we get to collaborate.
You know, as Microsoft has evolved,
we've invested more
and more in open source initiatives.
And of course, that means
actively learning
and always examining
what we can do to improve.
You know, when I look back,
our open-source journey can be broken
into a few big phases
right from the early days of open
sourcing our own
proprietary software with .NET
being the most
well known to building
software, that's open
source from the beginning,
like Visual Studio
Code or Project Bicep
being more recent examples,
to becoming a leader in contributing
to community projects
and initiatives,
for example, our contributions
to Kubernetes into Linux.
Now I know Sarah, you joined Microsoft
after a long career in open source
and have a really
interesting story about that.
And what drew you to Microsoft.
Yeah, I'm happy to talk about this
because it's really it's great fun.
I lived in Seattle for 19 years
and I was really close,
but I never interviewed at Microsoft.
That was when Microsoft
was very much Windows focused.
I was a Linux person.
I ended up working in the
Kubernetes space for a few years
and moved to the Bay Area.
But I really missed Seattle
and then watching
all of these moves happen in open source,
especially over the last few years.
I was working with John
Gossman on the Linux Foundation board
and was really, really impressed.
And he asked me, hey,
come, come, talk to Microsoft.
It's kind of a stealth
interview, actually.
It was another year before I joined.
It's been amazing to work for a company
that's pivoting into something
that's my own specialty.
You know, I can't say more than that.
It's really amazing to watch Microsoft
want to make that change.
And I can help.
And you've helped me.
I didn't have the pleasure to meet
you during your interviews,
but we met shortly after you joined,
and that's been the start
of a great collaboration,
which I've just thoroughly enjoyed.
I've been able to draw
on my years in Windows and you,
your years in open source
and together, right?
We're really charting the future
and really helping the engineers
and also our customers
with the products we build.
By the way,
this February is the 20th
anniversary of .Net.
I'm sure you've got stories
about how that transition took place.
You know, it's it's amazing
to we've been thinking
about .NET for that long.
And if there's one thing
that's emblematic
of Microsoft's transformation,
it is .NET, it
started out proprietary
and flash forward 20 years
and look at how it's evolved
and the world has evolved
and how the developer
and community interacts
with it has evolved.
We've really had a cultural shift,
and .Net isn't
the only place where we've done this.
PowerShell is another example of this
that I was part of,
and we've learned a lot
of important lessons
on how to collaborate,
you know, in development in the open,
which then sets us on
the path to branch out
even more into work,
ranging from the Windows Subsystem
for Linux to Azure Kubernetes.
And you know, just the varied
goals for Microsoft's interests
need different types
of approaches and engagements.
Yeah, completely.
WSL is a great example.
It involved us bringing open source
into a proprietary operating system.
We were bringing Linux in as a subsystem
so that people could get
a little bit of familiarity and
realize that this isn't a world
where one has to have
either a Windows or Linux.
And this isn't the world we're in today.
AKS is another great example.
We've been engaging
in the upstream project
for Kubernetes, not quite since its inception,
but pretty close.
And in the last couple of years,
we've made investments in things
like bringing IPV 6 into Kubernetes
because it's something it needed.
It didn't have any IPV 6.
Engineers from the community
and other engineers inside
Microsoft moved that rock
for the Kubernetes community.
It was really important.
We're learning how to do that
upstream work and contributions,
and that that evolution
will take some time.
Yeah, I was part of the WSL work,
and many of the engineers
who worked on AKS
joined Microsoft
from an open source background.
So they were bringing
in a community first perspective
on software development.
And at the same time,
many of the engineers who worked on
WSL had been at Microsoft
for a long time.
So there was a lot of cross-pollination
of ideas and cultural adaptation.
And,
you know, we're still
learning and evolving.
But the journey has been
pretty exciting, as you said.
Now, since Microsoft is working on
both proprietary
and open source software,
can you talk about how teams have evolved
to work with open source systems
where not
everything is within their control.
Yeah, it's a really interesting point.
We have to shift.
We're working on both proprietary
and open source.
And I bet even customers out there
today are all using open source,
even just as a consumer
of a modern phone.
There's a whole pile of open source,
no matter who you got your phone from.
These are the points
where we have to learn and engage
and spend our time
evaluating where
we're not as good at open source
and where we need to enable
engineers everywhere to be better at this
and to see the value of open source
engineering economics
and use that way
as a way of sharing very broadly.
This transformation isn't a short trip,
it's something we're
seeing across the industry.
Engineers who came in
from the open source community,
they're learning from Microsoft,
but at the same time, they're teaching
the people who've been at Microsoft
a long time about open source culture.
You know, it's a transformative time.
It comes with a lot of
learning and adapting.
And for someone who's
been at Microsoft for a long time,
just the learning culture at Microsoft
has made such a tremendous impact
on the open source journey.
A company that truly values
learning at its core,
is able to adapt and lead,
especially in an industry
which has changed enough
for Microsoft's vision
to move from a computer on every desk
to empowering every person
to achieve more.
Yeah, it's so true.
It's always a challenge
to make this level of cultural change.
We have different groups
inside of Microsoft
with different levels of experience
and then also different types
of open source experience.
We use open source software.
We contribute work upstream
to projects big and small.
And we have several teams
which are working in the open
from a proof of concept.
One that comes to mind,
there is Project Bicep.
When we asked an engineer from Project
Bicep why they made
the project open source,
the answer was it's
just a great way to develop software
and a more transparent way to engage
with the people who use the code.
We need to make sure
that we have these conversations
as we're learning
where we want to open source things.
What's the right strategy?
How do you want to add value
and derive value from these projects?
We believe that this is a great way
to develop software, more transparent
and an even better way to engage
with people who use that code.
You know,
it's just such a
significant shift, right?
The culture, you know,
as you talked about.
But the Cultural Revolution
is not just happening
at the macro level of the company,
but with individuals
such as yourself and I,
and we can sit down
and have conversations and engage
and learn from each other
and we push each other in good ways.
You know, I firmly believe that
this generates better results,
you know, for the community, for products
and ultimately for the customer.
You know, now we know
that a lot of businesses
use open source technologies
in conjunction with proprietary tools,
and there are several ways
developers use this approach.
There are lots of things
that use open source as part of it.
When was the last time
any of your developers
or our developers wrote a math library?
Anybody remember?
I can't. Yeah, no.
I think somebody said college,
and that was even 25 years ago.
That's open source.
And that's really a key point.
Nobody is rewriting
the things that are fixed.
How do I multiply the force here?
How do I make a bigger impact?
This is using common libraries.
This use of infrastructure tools
that we share as an industry.
This is such a mix of open source
and proprietary,
and we see it all across the industry.
Our use of open source inside Microsoft,
we quantify it.
We use tens of thousands of different
open source components
in millions of places in our product.
We see this
in the enterprises we talk to, SAP
as an example, great enterprise product
runs on top of Linux.
It's proprietary
and it does what it does very well.
And Linux is open source
and it provides a very good
operating system for SAP.
We also see open
source happening across individual
and developer levels.
In the past, open
source has been a challenge
to get involved in
and Microsoft is trying to open that up.
Only particular groups
used to be able to participate.
We're trying to break that open
and help democratize
how people can engage with open source.
We're trying to make it easier.
We're trying to get people
more opportunities to get involved
and to continue to innovate.
Our customer focus
is really at the heart of this.
And that's what gives us
the urge and the urgency
to get very good at open source.
I mean, just thinking
about the teams here in Azure,
we've gained better
decision making skills and outcomes
as a result of exploring
the different ideas
and inputs from such a diverse
and expansive group
of community innovators.
And that collaboration
is at the heart of it. It really helps.
Now what's your opinion,
Sarah, on the role that open
source plays in innovation?
Oh, I think it's huge.
We're not the only place
for smart thinking, and that's clear.
Like no one company or person is.
No one organization is.
We have to look outside of our walls
and be part of this revolution
or this evolution.
Open source gives you the ability
to easily share innovation
with each other,
and it provides transparency among users.
Many of these things,
the work that we're doing
and those who are paying attention
here to this show may not be aware
how heavily invested we are in the OSS
open source community here.
Microsoft is continuing to foster
inside open source
our innovation and inclusion.
Yeah, who
who would have thought ten years ago
we would have had a Linux
subsystem for Windows?
I know it's so crazy.
Starting out as a Windows
user and now having, you know,
adopted open source,
I identify with the importance
of operating in both ecosystems.
Software is so ingrained in everything now,
that like we're seeing open
source initiatives
tackle issues that aren't
even just technical
anymore, we're starting
to get into social and ethical areas.
Responsible AI
is a great example
where we're seeing open
source and fairness intersect
and efforts happen in the community
to make it more responsible.
Our work in the Azure space team,
we’re open sourcing
software is being used to see
what kind of genetic impact
space living has on astronauts.
How cool is that?
That's super cool.
And I know this is just the beginning
of what we'll be seeing as innovation
continues to grow exponentially.
Yes, open source is going to be
and needs to be a substantial part
of Microsoft's future.
It's been really great
to reconnect with you
right here in person,
on Inside Azure for IT.
I hear you're also speaking on Azure
Open Source Day on February 15.
That is true.
So, I look forward
to tuning into your session.
Thank you for having me.
It's been such a treat.
Be sure, and register
at the link below
and check out the other segments
of this episode of Inside Azure for IT,
with Mike Evans and
Xavier Lecauchois from Red Hat
and Krishna Ganugapati and Brendan Burns
from Microsoft Engineering.
And for all our videos, deep dives
and skilling content, head to
Azure.com/InsideAzureforIT.
I'll see you next time.