Microsoft unveils its own Linux distro Azure Cloud Switch

Microsoft has built its own Linux distribution in the form of a network operating system. The platform is called Azure Cloud Switch or ACS. Open source software, Microsoft applications and third-party applications must be able to handle it.

The Azure Cloud Switch is “our foray into building our own software for network devices, such as switches,” writes a software architect on the Azure blog. The system is a “modular, cross-platform operating system for networked data center systems, built on Linux.” The system should ‘make it easier to quickly debug, test and repair software’.

ACS should make it easier to share the same software stack across hardware from different brands of switches. This is done via the Switch Abstraction Interface of the Open Compute Project, where Microsoft itself is one of the founders, along with Facebook and Intel, among others.

ACS must also ensure better integration with monitoring software from Microsoft itself, so that the use of the command line is not or less necessary. Just like servers, the switches must be serviceable with weekly software rollouts and roll-backs.

Microsoft has long supported several Linux distributions on its Azure hosting platform. The first steps towards this were already taken in 2012. Official tech support for this was implemented in mid-July this year.