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Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

ft.com

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Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#11

Post by skywhopper »

chasd00 wrote: post #5

From what I can tell, the DC buildout isn't going that well. I've been wondering about the current status of the projects because there hasn't been much in the news or here about new DC's coming online. This report summary makes the point that getting power to the datacenters with onsite generation is running into roadblocks from permitting to even finding turbines to buy. He who shouldn't be named (here) made the sa…

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+battery+space-cooling equipment plus sufficient launch infrastructure and resources. Meanwhile, our government is paying companies to stop building wind power and bombing sources of natural gas.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#14

Post by mattalex »

mschuster91 wrote: post #4
spamizbad wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One level above junk. Yikes.

The problem with Oracle is how much utterly and directly depends on them. They still are the authoritative source on "what is Java" and stuff like SAP directly depends on Java and in many cases Oracle Database (the supported alternatives are AFAIK IBM's mainframe stuff and MS SQL, but I only ever saw Oracle whenever I had the misfortune of having to dig into SAP). If Oracle goes down, a lot of businesses are going to…

SAP has largely switched over to their own HANA database for new deployments. Even before that their "AnyDB" database worked with pretty much any backend and is still supported. The reason you see oracle has less to do with what SAP wants and more to do with "It's what the company/engineers have already used/set up in the past".

Regarding Java, SAP has long switched over to openjdk (though oracle java is supported in some cases). Specifically, they have their own custom fork of openjdk "SapMachine" precisely to be independent from oracle (FYI: if you look at openjdk upstream you will see many core contributors are employed by SAP)

In general, I would say that the actual tech companies that have to interact with oracle's stuff are generally very well equipped to drop them or have already done so. The bigger issue are legacy "consumers" of oracle (e.g. if Pepsi has their data in oracle DB), which often do not have such contingencies.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#15

Post by ai-x »

skywhopper wrote: post #11
chasd00 wrote: post #5

From what I can tell, the DC buildout isn't going that well. I've been wondering about the current status of the projects because there hasn't been much in the news or here about new DC's coming online. This report summary makes the point that getting power to the datacenters with onsite generation is running into roadblocks from permitting to even finding turbines to buy. He who shouldn't be named (here) made the sa…

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

[flagged]

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#16

Post by cozzyd »

mschuster91 wrote: post #4
spamizbad wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One level above junk. Yikes.

The problem with Oracle is how much utterly and directly depends on them. They still are the authoritative source on "what is Java" and stuff like SAP directly depends on Java and in many cases Oracle Database (the supported alternatives are AFAIK IBM's mainframe stuff and MS SQL, but I only ever saw Oracle whenever I had the misfortune of having to dig into SAP). If Oracle goes down, a lot of businesses are going to…

yeah, like my university's whole accounting system...

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#17

Post by Ekaros »

cyanydeez wrote: post #6
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #2

Related: S&P Global has lowered Oracle’s creditworthiness from BBB to BBB- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48909768

every stock should have the chance to go to zero if we are to have a true Free Market.

Fundamentally wiping out shareholders and most of bond holders bonds is a good thing. It keeps markets healthy and honest. Excuses about pensions is just excuses from gamblers.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#18

Post by throwaway26721 »

VonGuard wrote: post #10

Oracle cannot possibly be expecting to meet its bets here. My own empirical one-person observation is that my friend worked there in the group that went around the world standing up their new cloud datacenters, and he was there from basically 2019 to earlier this year. They laid him and half his team off earlier this year. Absolutely nonsensical if they're really building out cloud data centers. Because that's exactl…

> Because that's exactly what his job was for the previous 5 years...

Or possibly senior leadership isn’t happy with the pace of DC buildout over the last 5-years.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#19

Post by chasd00 »

skywhopper wrote: post #11
chasd00 wrote: post #5

From what I can tell, the DC buildout isn't going that well. I've been wondering about the current status of the projects because there hasn't been much in the news or here about new DC's coming online. This report summary makes the point that getting power to the datacenters with onsite generation is running into roadblocks from permitting to even finding turbines to buy. He who shouldn't be named (here) made the sa…

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

sheesh i didn't say a datacenter-in-space was a good/feasibnle idea. The point i was making is I feel that building power plants to power a datacenter is turning out to be harder than software people realize and multi-year (or worse) delays likely the result.

Re: Oracle could face $7B collateral bill for Wisconsin data centre

#20

Post by _keats »

ai-x wrote: post #15
skywhopper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can’t get enough electrical power on earth because of supply constraints, but that we can solve that by launching the datacenters and their entire support infrastructure into space makes no sense unless you’re a huckster trying to pump up your space launch business ahead of an IPO. There’s no way we are more constrained on land-based solar+battery equipment than we would be on space-worthy solar+batt…

[flagged]

I think the question here is: do the laws of economics allow it?
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