We’re in an era where phrases like “Microsoft Linux” no longer make others stare at you, thinking they’ve misheard what you said. Interestingly, the Redmond giant, who once compared Linux to cancer, now uses it as the foundation for its billions-dollar Azure cloud platform. Anyway.
As most of you know, LinkedIn, the world’s leading business and employment-focused social media platform, has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft since December 2016.
You are probably less familiar with the fact that, in recent years, it has been driven entirely by a huge number of servers running CentOS 7. However, this is no longer the case, and the choice of a replacement for this iconic operating system is more than interesting.
In a rather intriguing article, LinkedIn announced that the platform has successfully transitioned to Azure Linux, running it on nearly all its servers, virtual machines, and containers. The decision to switch came at a crucial time as LinkedIn faced the impending end-of-life of CentOS 7.
For those unfamiliar with Azure Linux, it is a highly specialized free and open-source distribution (previously known as CBL-Mariner) developed by Microsoft and tailored for Azure’s cloud infrastructure.
In other words, this isn’t your typical Linux distro in the broad sense that you pick up and use for everyday computer use (it doesn’t even include things like desktop environments).
According to LinkedIn, the migration to Azure Linux was meticulously planned and executed, aligning with LinkedInโs goals of modernizing its operations and delivering new capabilities more swiftly. Critical factors driving this change included cost-effectiveness, scalability, customization options, and compliance requirements.
Moreover, the transition addressed several technical challenges, such as modernizing the kernel on new hardware, improving bootstrap times, fresher software packages, and ensuring rapid security updatesโall while maintaining system stability across the platform.
We need to rely on LinkedIn’s statements that they’ve successfully tackled these challenges because, in reality, Azure Linux is hardly used by anyone outside of Microsoftโand that probably won’t change soon, making it difficult to evaluate its benefits now.
Beyond the glowing words in the announcement, however, let’s not forget the obvious truthโbeing owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn makes perfect sense to bet on using its product.
In almost every other case, a corporation of this size would typically choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a natural choice when transitioning from CentOS 7. Alternatively, they might consider options similar to Rocky or Alma, both of which are also part of the RHEL/Enterprise Linux ecosystem.
What Iโm trying to say is that, beyond the technical merits of Azure Linux, Microsoftโs corporate interests probably largely determined its choice.
This, on the other hand, is not a bad thing. It shows that Azure Linux is here to stay and makes a strong case for active development and support for years to come, so who knows what we can expect from it going forward.
For more information, refer to the official LinkedIn announcement.
