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Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

explorer.oxide.computer

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Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#11

Post by convolvatron »

TZubiri wrote: post #10
convolvatron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gone through the same process, not so much that I don't think I would be worth considering, but serious code and documentation examples aren't something I can really give out given that they're proprietary. this last winter I started a whole guest-kernel based syscall intermediation and distribution framework in rust just for the application. with all kinds of design documents. I was about 30% finished by the ti…

I'd be interested in the context if you'd be willing to share. It sounds from the outside like Oxide has an interview process that requires some low level engineering work to be delivered? Maybe I got that wrong.

no, they want a questionnaire, a coding sample, and an example of technical writing. there's a reasonable interpretation of that that doesn't involve writing a distributed unix.

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#12

Post by TZubiri »

LoganDark wrote: post #7
burnrate wrote: post #3

I wonder how much a rack like this costs

IIRC I heard that a single rack is upwards of $600k–$1m, but that was before the AI boom/crisis.

I don't recall if the price was confidential, but I will say that it's higher than that, and that it has been influenced by the RAM cost increase.

If I recall when comparing to competition, it was premium priced, for sure, but it's more that it's so dense that you had to compare 1 Oxide rack to like 4 commodity racks. Spec for spec I recall that the premium for the verticality wasn't that high.

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#14

Post by TZubiri »

convolvatron wrote: post #11
TZubiri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in the context if you'd be willing to share. It sounds from the outside like Oxide has an interview process that requires some low level engineering work to be delivered? Maybe I got that wrong.

no, they want a questionnaire, a coding sample, and an example of technical writing. there's a reasonable interpretation of that that doesn't involve writing a distributed unix.

Sounds approachable, and something that would be evaluated based on merit.

As usual, I'm assuming the assignment is evaluated based on a reasonable time-commitment. From what the recruiting experts tell me, it's a good strategy to spend as much time as possible, the deliverable is better, and the optics aren't bad either, it signals investment into the application instead of signalling spray and pray application broadcasting.

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#15

Post by andrewl-hn »

This design feels very obvious-in-hindsight. Consolidate power adapters and networking, replace cabling with pluggable slots. It's something similar to what IBM mainframes or Sun cabinets could've looked like. Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this, even at their peak in 2000s or during cloud boom in 2010s. I wonder why?

Beautiful machine, and fun to see Illumos heart still beating inside!

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#17

Post by wmf »

andrewl-hn wrote: post #15

This design feels very obvious-in-hindsight . Consolidate power adapters and networking, replace cabling with pluggable slots. It's something similar to what IBM mainframes or Sun cabinets could've looked like. Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this, even at their peak in 2000s or during cloud boom in 2010s. I wonder why? Beautiful machine, and fun to see Illumos heart…

The vendors did make blades in the 2000s.

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#19

Post by bri3d »

andrewl-hn wrote: post #15

This design feels very obvious-in-hindsight . Consolidate power adapters and networking, replace cabling with pluggable slots. It's something similar to what IBM mainframes or Sun cabinets could've looked like. Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this, even at their peak in 2000s or during cloud boom in 2010s. I wonder why? Beautiful machine, and fun to see Illumos heart…

> Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this, even at their peak in 2000s or during cloud boom in 2010s.

Not so sure about this one. HCI (Hyperconverged) rack units (where storage and compute live in the same racked systems) and "blade servers" have been a thing for a really long time now; compute sleds aren't what's novel here.

Rack-level DC conversion is also not particularly novel, although underutilized IMO. It was pretty popular in HPC style density applications for awhile (see HP/SGI Altix 4000 for a good old example).

What's unique about Oxide is that they went all the way down to the firmware and then back up, rather than doing commodity hardware integration or reselling - for example, you can get something like a Supermicro EVO:Rail, but it will be running VMWare, not a fully integrated platform.

Re: Oxide computer 3D rack guided tour

#20

Post by baby_souffle »

andrewl-hn wrote: post #15

This design feels very obvious-in-hindsight . Consolidate power adapters and networking, replace cabling with pluggable slots. It's something similar to what IBM mainframes or Sun cabinets could've looked like. Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this, even at their peak in 2000s or during cloud boom in 2010s. I wonder why? Beautiful machine, and fun to see Illumos heart…

> Somehow hardware giants like Dell, HP, SuperMicro, etc didn't make a product like this,

Dell and HP both have "blades" that plugged into a blade-chassis. The chassis had all the lights out mgmt as well as power/networking integrated so the blade was basically a metal box with compute/memory/storage and it just slid in to the dock.

I am sure that supermico had something like this as well

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