There are rumblings that Azure is having capacity issues once again, with customers in the UK South region reporting problems getting new VMs provisioned.
[...] In case there was any doubt as to what the problem was, the message went on: "To ensure that all customers can access the services they need, we are working through approving quota requests as we bring additional capacity online."
According to the update, the capacity constraints apply to the A, BS, Dv2, DSv2, Dv3 and DSv3 series machines in the UK South region. A-series VMs are typically used for development and testing, B-series are similiar[sic], but are geared to short bursts of high CPU utilisation. The D-series are heftier beasts, aimed at running enterprise applications. The 'S' moniker indicates support for SSDs.
Microsoft introduced the Dv3 VM sizes last July, with the cloudy machines featuring up to 64vCPUs and 256GiB RAM. Assuming you can actually provision the things.
Customers are feeling blue about Azure.
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https://medium.com/@wtfmitchel/azure-vs-moores-law-2020-65a6fe67e31b
As a result of undershooting their projected capacity by such a large margin, Microsoft was way off on their capacity projections with Azure and only built roughly 1/3 of the data center capacity that was actually necessary. Consequently, they had to over-provision their existing data centers to the point of tripping the breakers and rapidly fill the gaps with an excessive amount of leased space to meet the demand that they projected. All of which effectively doubled the amount of leased space in their portfolio from 25% to 50%, extended their break-even to nearly a decade, and killed their hopes of profitability any time soon.
While an honest mistake and not being able to foresee the future is forgivable, knowingly omitting a mistake of this magnitude is criminal when considering how much Microsoft is hedging its future on Azure. On top of supplying misleading revenue metrics in their quarterly 10K filings to fortify a position of strength and being second only to AWS, Microsoft seems to be wary about reporting Azure's individual performance metrics or news of these failings that would enable investors to conclude this for themselves. Instead, Microsoft appears to be averaging out Azure's losses with their legacy mainstays that are profitable by reporting its revenue within their Intelligent Cloud container instead of itemizing it.
Previously:
- Azure 'Running out of Internets' in UK South, Starts Rationing VMs
- Azure Stack Will Need Special Sysadmins, Says Microsoft
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:26AM (3 children)
7x24 reliability, except when it can't be provisioned.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 20 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)
I'd rant about a highly-sought-after tech product being under-supplied, but I'm not sure how to feel about parallels between Nintendo, Microsoft, and Tesla...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:57AM (1 child)
Product? You mean service. There's plenty of Comcast service for all, bro. I'm in the alley behind your house, using your internets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @10:21AM
That's not his house. It's his parents' house.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday July 20 2018, @12:44AM (2 children)
If you are having trouble becoming a Microsoft customer, perhaps it's fate.
You might have a look at lowendbox.com and see whether you can find a VM there. Though you will end up with a random provider that might or might suit you, three major benefits are that (1) you'll get a VM, (2) you won't be tied to Microsoft nor encouraging them financially, and (3) it will be much less boring and more adventurous.
As I age, I find that "more boring" and "less adventurous" are much nicer than they sound, yet I still keep being drawn back to lowendbox.com (no affiliation other than I read the site and occasionally follow their links to put virtual machines online). It's because I am cheap. VMs that work out, I put clients on; VMs that don't, I don't renew.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:54AM
When you're submitting your blog/resume to top tech companies, "Managed some Linux VMs on a bunch of cheap no-name VPS providers" doesn't look as good as "Rockstar DevOps Fucking The Azure Cloud Bro!"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday July 20 2018, @07:43PM
Unfortunately, I no longer have time for lowendbox.com. The value of my time is such that I would rather pay an extra few dollars for something that is boring over something that becomes exciting once a month.
Google's AppEngine cuts a mean deal. For low traffic web site or web service hosting, it ends up costing around a penny every few months with far less hassle. The terms of service is also superior to what most lowendbox.com providers have, probably in part because Google provides service to other large companies that demand it.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 20 2018, @01:07AM (2 children)
Good luck, Walmart...good job partnering with a loser operation.
If I were a Walmart exec, I'd be worried.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @02:08AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday July 20 2018, @03:33AM
Global company
Global assets
Cloud, but with local restrictions.
How many of these (prospective/potential/optimistic) Azure clients care where their cloud service is located?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @03:32AM (1 child)
I currently can choose between:
A) VM
B) Encrypted partition
C) OS
D) SSD
E) Benchmark
Which is best? This story makes me think option A is a bad one.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday July 20 2018, @08:27AM
All of the above: You should benchmark a VM running some OS on an encrypted partition of an SSD.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 20 2018, @03:19PM
If it's all virtual, how can there be a capacity problem? It's all just controls. Dial up more virtual machines, problem solved!
It's just like printing money!
Or laying off people to improve this quarter's profits.
Or requiring move overtime.
Or polluting the air and water because . . . executive bonuses!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.