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Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

oxide.computer

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Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#251

Post by yazaddaruvala »

bcantrill wrote: post #110
atonse wrote: post #9

This looks interesting (although I'm not in the target market, too small)... But if I were looking at this, judging from the quality of people they've amassed in their engineering team, is there any chance they won't be acquired in 6 months? To anyone looking to take a bet on this, what is the answer to "what's your plan for when your stellar team gets acquired?" And what answer will satisfy that buyer? Update: Addin…

Hi! So, at every step -- from conception to funding to building the team and now building the product -- we have done so to build a big, successful public company. Not only do we (the founders) share that conviction, but it is shared by our investors and employees as well. For better or for ill, we are -- as we memorably declared to one investor -- ride or die. Also, if it's of any solace, I really don't think any of…

If they haven't invested already you might have just found one more investor :)

https://a16z.com/2021/05/27/cost-of-cloud-paradox-market-cap...

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#252

Post by unixhero »

I cannot wait for this.

However I also do not see when I will buy a full shelf of gear, even though I would love to. Will they also release a maxi version, micro version and a nano version? Ie. 2U server, PRO workstation and an small formfactor? I think the innovations they have done to these computers deserve to be even more places than just in a massive and awesome data processing rack.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#253

Post by doublepg23 »

notacoward wrote: post #131

All NVMe seems like a good starting point, but I'd hope that some day there will be a more capacity-oriented variant for people who actually know what they're doing with exabyte-scale storage.

Can you expand on what you're doing on an exabyte scale?

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#254

Post by rugwirobaker »

unixhero wrote: post #252

I cannot wait for this. However I also do not see when I will buy a full shelf of gear, even though I would love to. Will they also release a maxi version, micro version and a nano version? Ie. 2U server, PRO workstation and an small formfactor? I think the innovations they have done to these computers deserve to be even more places than just in a massive and awesome data processing rack.

A small form factor would definitely make sense as test environment.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#255

Post by dsr_ »

kbenson wrote: post #132
dsr_ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, more relevant to this discussion, servers.

No, CPUs is more relevant. Linux runs on M1, and if they sold CPUs, someone would make a board they could be put on that fit in standard server form factors. For this type of comparison, people want CPUs, not the next version of Xserve.

But Apple doesn't sell the M1 cpu without a Mini or MB carrier included.

I think relatively few people want to buy a rackmount server based on a motherboard that hosts a cannibalized M1 limited to the 16GB of RAM that it came with, paying the price premium for the rest of the machine. An M1 seems to be roughly equivalent to an Ryzen 5000-series CPU, and you can get those for $300 (6c/12t) through $1K (16c/32t) without having to go through the labor costs of pulling out the CPU from a $900 carrier.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#256

Post by _e »

emmelaich wrote: post #174
atonse wrote: post #9

This looks interesting (although I'm not in the target market, too small)... But if I were looking at this, judging from the quality of people they've amassed in their engineering team, is there any chance they won't be acquired in 6 months? To anyone looking to take a bet on this, what is the answer to "what's your plan for when your stellar team gets acquired?" And what answer will satisfy that buyer? Update: Addin…

I was going to shrug at this a little until I saw some of the names. Good luck. Not sure that 'with the software baked in' is a good phrase to use. Sounds inflexible. Perhaps a different phrasing would help?

I agree... what I think they meant to say is something along the lines of software defaults are already optimized to maximize and take advantage of the hardware's abilities so work is completed faster. The 'with the software baked in' should be changed to reflect the value proposition that Oxide is alluding to.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#257

Post by notacoward »

doublepg23 wrote: post #253
notacoward wrote: post #131

All NVMe seems like a good starting point, but I'd hope that some day there will be a more capacity-oriented variant for people who actually know what they're doing with exabyte-scale storage.

Can you expand on what you're doing on an exabyte scale?

Nothing any more, but I used to work on such systems at Facebook. The public name was Tectonic; there was a paper at FAST this year IIRC. As time goes by, this kind of scale is going to be more common. I still remember when having a single petabyte was something to brag about.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#258

Post by kbenson »

dsr_ wrote: post #255
kbenson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, CPUs is more relevant. Linux runs on M1, and if they sold CPUs, someone would make a board they could be put on that fit in standard server form factors. For this type of comparison, people want CPUs, not the next version of Xserve.

But Apple doesn't sell the M1 cpu without a Mini or MB carrier included. I think relatively few people want to buy a rackmount server based on a motherboard that hosts a cannibalized M1 limited to the 16GB of RAM that it came with, paying the price premium for the rest of the machine. An M1 seems to be roughly equivalent to an Ryzen 5000-series CPU, and you can get those for $300 (6c/12t) through $1K (16c/32t) withou…

I'm not sure I follow. The relevant part of the thread as I saw it was "too bad Apple does not sell CPUs." Selling the CPUs would mean you wouldn't need to cannibalize anything, and in a discussion about the merits of AMD vs Intel as the part used in a platform like this, comparing the bare CPU seems more relevant.

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#259

Post by SSLy »

jsolson wrote: post #64
boulos wrote: post #21

First, congrats! But second, I'd love to understand the compute vs storage tradeoff chosen here. Looking at the (pretty!) picture [1], I was shocked to see "Wow, it's mostly storage?". Is that from going all flash? Heading to https://oxide.computer/product for more details, lists: - 2048 cores - 30 TB of memory - 1024 TB of flash (1 PiB) Given how much of the rack is storage, I'm not sure which Milan was chosen (and…

+1 to congrats -- my read on this: - There's a bunch of RJ45 up top that I don't quite understand :) - A bunch of storage sleds - A compute sled, 100G QSFP switch, compute sled sandwich - Power distribution (rectifiers, I'd think, unless it's AC to the trays?) - Another CSC sandwich - More storage. I assume in reality we'd have many more cables making things less pretty, given the number of front-facing QSFPs on thos…

>- There's a bunch of RJ45 up top that I don't quite understand :)

Out of data-plane HW mgmt probably

Re: Servers as they should be – shipping early 2022

#260

Post by GordonS »

rapsey wrote: post #68
_jal wrote: post #57

It sure looks pretty, but appears to be - - dedicated to virtualization, done their way - rather inflexible in hardware specs - vendor-locked at the rack - if you have hardware from someone else, it can't live in the same cabinet I guess if you just want a pretty data center in a box and look like what they consider a 'normal' enterprise to be, it might appeal. But I'm not sure how many people asked for Apple-style h…

Why is it important what kind of virtualization? It works and since it is built for this hardware it will likely be more reliable then anything you're putting together yourself. The specs are damn good. When it is all top-of-the-line, inflexibility is kind of a mute point. Where else are you going to go? > But I'm not sure how many people asked for Apple-style hardware in the DC. Well integrated, performant and relia…

Sorry to be that guy, but it's "moot point", not "mute point".
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