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Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

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Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#51

Post by semi-extrinsic »

eaasen wrote: post #32
bcantrill wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the only thing really inherent about our price point is that we're selling compute by the rack: as it turns out, a whole rack of server-class CPUs (and its accompanying DRAM, flash, NICs, and switching ASICs) is pretty expensive! But this doesn't mean that it's a luxury good: especially because customers won't need to buy software separately (as one does now for hypervisor, control plane, storage software, etc.),…

It also turns out that not many people have 3-phase power and can support a heat/power load of 15kW in their homes ;)

I actually suspect it would be a lot easier to support 15kW of power in my home than 15 kW of cooling.

I know several people with 2x 240V 32A 3-phase in their garage, that's 20+ kW at any reasonable power factor. But a 15 kW cooler that would work in summer would annoy the hell out of any neighbours living closer than a mile.

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#52

Post by rfoo »

mise_en_place wrote: post #50
anaisbetts wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this too, but if the goal of the control plane software and blade host OS is solely to create VMs and not to actually be a general-purpose OS, this probably doesn't matter as much?

Idk, KVM/libvirt/qemu has worked fine for me. It is very lightweight compared to say VMWare. If I don't want VMs I could use Docker/containerd. What problem does Oxide solve exactly?

Sell you a few racks of servers, ready to use out of the box, I guess?

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#53

Post by 0des »

bcantrill wrote: post #45
qbasic_forever wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of commodity chips that go into making a full server rack. If any little power regulator, etc. is backordered for months and years it's just more unexpected pain. And that's before we even get to the problems of entire factories shutting down, just look at what's happening to Apple & Foxconn of all companies in Shenzhen this week. If the big players are struggling the small fries are in for pain too.

The supply chain crisis is very, very real, but we are blessed with absolutely terrific operations folks coming from a wide range of industrial backgrounds (e.g., Apple, Lenovo, GE, P&G). They have pulled absolute supply chain miracles (knocking loudly on wood!) -- but we have also had the luxury of relatively small quantities (we're not buying millions of anything) and new design, where we can factor in lead times.…

Just curious, are you all working out of the same place or all remote? Curious about hardware startups and how that works. Thanks

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#54

Post by steveklabnik »

0des wrote: post #53
bcantrill wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply chain crisis is very, very real, but we are blessed with absolutely terrific operations folks coming from a wide range of industrial backgrounds (e.g., Apple, Lenovo, GE, P&G). They have pulled absolute supply chain miracles (knocking loudly on wood!) -- but we have also had the luxury of relatively small quantities (we're not buying millions of anything) and new design, where we can factor in lead times.…

Just curious, are you all working out of the same place or all remote? Curious about hardware startups and how that works. Thanks

We have an office, but many people aren't in the Bay Area (myself included). Not everyone is doing hardware, and some folks who do have nice home setups they enjoy working with. It's a spectrum, basically.

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#55

Post by 0des »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #51
eaasen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also turns out that not many people have 3-phase power and can support a heat/power load of 15kW in their homes ;)

I actually suspect it would be a lot easier to support 15kW of power in my home than 15 kW of cooling. I know several people with 2x 240V 32A 3-phase in their garage, that's 20+ kW at any reasonable power factor. But a 15 kW cooler that would work in summer would annoy the hell out of any neighbours living closer than a mile.

Simple solution: Turn those neighbours into shareholders and they can sleep to the sound of money all summer long :)

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#56

Post by bsder »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #29
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I can't help but wonder how much the choice of a Solaris-derived OS will hobble adoption, support for devices, etc. Does it matter? Oxide is building the whole stack - their own hardware with their own firmware to run their own OS with their own virtualization layer. They don't need support for arbitrary devices, because they control the hardware.

I really worry about a startup taking a massive bet on their own custom hardware now in 2022. The world was much, much different in December 2019 when Oxide started than it is now. Let's hope the investment cash keeps flowing and the hardware gets to folks that purchased it.

Right now is, in fact, the best time to be betting on custom hardware.

Moore's Law has been dead for a while. Getting "performance" now requires design and architecture again rather than just sitting back for 18 months and letting Moore's Law kill your competitor.

The big problem right now is that custom chip hardware is still too stupidly expensive because of EDA software. Fab runs are sub $50K, but EDA software is greater than 100K per seat and goes up rapidly from that.

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dcre wrote: post #37
dls2016 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious... if I'm still in the "triage" bucket after 6 weeks should I assume the ship has sailed? I was really hoping to hear back one way or the other!

No, you will hear back. We're trying really hard to keep to the 6 weeks thing but sometimes we don't succeed.

[deleted]

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#58

Post by 0des »

steveklabnik wrote: post #54
0des wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, are you all working out of the same place or all remote? Curious about hardware startups and how that works. Thanks

We have an office, but many people aren't in the Bay Area (myself included). Not everyone is doing hardware, and some folks who do have nice home setups they enjoy working with. It's a spectrum, basically.

Thanks steve

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#59

Post by 0des »

dcre wrote: post #37
dls2016 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious... if I'm still in the "triage" bucket after 6 weeks should I assume the ship has sailed? I was really hoping to hear back one way or the other!

No, you will hear back. We're trying really hard to keep to the 6 weeks thing but sometimes we don't succeed.

Please get back to them today, this is a prompt or cue to rescue this one from falling through the cracks. You never know...

Re: Oxide at Home: Propolis Says Hello

#60

Post by jjav »

yardie wrote: post #22

Love what they are doing. And as a cloud and on-prem supporter I get what they are trying to accomplish. If you haven't heard you should check out their podcast, "On the Metal [0]" It's a truly a gift especially if you are an elder millenial. [0] https://oxide.computer/podcasts

The podcast is awesome. Wish they would continue with more episodes!
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