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The Cloud Computer

oxide.computer

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Re: The Cloud Computer

#161

Post by MichaelZuo »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #39
siscia wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am missing how AWS/GCP/Azure does not solve this for you. Price point?

On prem. Reliable and inexpensive network connectivity they has any resemblance to a 10G LAN doesn't exist where I am. I work with some businesses who need very, very reliable, high-bandwidth, and low latency connectivity to their data. The amortized cost of on-prem beats the cost of any off-prem offering as soon as the cost of the necessary connectivity is factoted-in.

Isn't that exactly what this Oxide rack is for?

Your not going to find any serious hardware product with reliability guarantees, in writing, for much less than half a million anyways.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#162

Post by EvanAnderson »

steve1977 wrote: post #142
EvanAnderson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their firmware is open source. You can pay whoever you want to maintain it. You can't do that with Dell, HP, Supermicro, and the unknowable rabbit hole of ODMs and sub-suppliers and contractors who actually make the hardware and firmware for these companies. Until you've dealt with a malfunctioning Dell or HP server and have to live with being told "we don't know why it acts that way, we'll try to get the ODM to repr…

If I have server under maintenance with Dell or HP, they would replace the server or component for me in such a case. Which would probably be a lot faster than trying to find someone who could maintain some non-standard firmware (as good as it might be). Even if I had to replace the server on my own cost it would probably still be cheaper. And it would be easy to replace because it's commodity hardware, that was kind…

I have had experiences with tens of Dell servers with the same model NIC having the same fault. The servers were absolutely under maintenance. I fought with tech support for weeks before I was finally told it was a driver/firmware issue and that I had to work around it (and lose performance for the sake of reliability).

Maybe if I had hundreds of servers Dell would have helped me out. At the scale of tens they told me to take what I got. The Customer got a lower performance solution and nobody anywhere could help them for any amount of money, short of replacing the gear.

That's just a performance issue. I've heard horror stories about reliability-- All the way down to disk firmware and RAID controllers. I consider myself lucky.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#163

Post by mathverse »

This is too startup-y and niche and too small to attract enough companies on the market.

Best case this gets acquired by HP,IBM or Dell and will die out because talent will leave.

I know a 4bn/y revenue company that could greatly benefit from this but they will never even consider buying from a company like this.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#164

Post by dmix »

yardie wrote: post #120
benpacker wrote: post #65

I know price will vary wildly based on how many you’re buying, but does anyone have the roughest ballpark for how much it would cost to buy one (1), or like two?

They mentioned it really quickly in their Oxide an Friends podcast but, IIRC, prices start at $500k. Some of the audience asked if they were going to do a smaller configuration like half or quarter rack. And they said they were looking into it but weren't sure the of the business case.

I don’t know anything about buying servers, is that expensive?

Re: The Cloud Computer

#165

Post by aabhay »

weystrom wrote: post #16

> Everyone at Oxide makes $201,227 USD, regardless of location. Man I would love to work for a company like that. I don't know why more people don't set their startups like that.

Works until you have to hire a designer

Re: The Cloud Computer

#166

Post by FridgeSeal »

jpdb wrote: post #22

I really wish oxide had a Homelab/consumer centric offering! Spec wise, some low power systems like an Intel NUC, LattePanda Sigma, or Zimaboard. You could fit 3/4 of them in a single 1u with a shared power supply. They could even offer a full 1u with desktop grade chips on the same sleds. I have thought about building one myself, but it's a large investment of time that I can't seem to find lately.

Same here!

I’ve not personally used it, but their stack of software is open source, and according to some commenters in the thread, super high quality.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#167

Post by aeyes »

yardie wrote: post #120
benpacker wrote: post #65

I know price will vary wildly based on how many you’re buying, but does anyone have the roughest ballpark for how much it would cost to buy one (1), or like two?

They mentioned it really quickly in their Oxide an Friends podcast but, IIRC, prices start at $500k. Some of the audience asked if they were going to do a smaller configuration like half or quarter rack. And they said they were looking into it but weren't sure the of the business case.

In the spec sheet it looks like they have options with 16, 24 or 32 "compute sleds" (servers?).

Re: The Cloud Computer

#168

Post by carbotaniuman »

wild_egg wrote: post #128
dewey wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is one of these things where every employee in a cheap cost of living area will say "Exactly, man!" and people in an expensive area will see it differently because it might cap them lower than what they could get. I always find that a very naive point of view, of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side, who wouldn't. But I'm also aware that this is not how t…

> of course I would want to earn a US tech salary while living somewhere in the country side It's not about what you want, it's about knowing your value. If your work is worth a SF salary then that's what you should be getting. Moving from Idaho to SF doesn't magically make you more productive. The company knows it's still getting more value from you than what you're being paid. They just want to keep more of that va…

Or, it could be that being San Francisco has agglomeration effects (granted most startups/companies uterrly fail at this part).

Re: The Cloud Computer

#169

Post by EvanAnderson »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #161
EvanAnderson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On prem. Reliable and inexpensive network connectivity they has any resemblance to a 10G LAN doesn't exist where I am. I work with some businesses who need very, very reliable, high-bandwidth, and low latency connectivity to their data. The amortized cost of on-prem beats the cost of any off-prem offering as soon as the cost of the necessary connectivity is factoted-in.

Isn't that exactly what this Oxide rack is for? Your not going to find any serious hardware product with reliability guarantees, in writing, for much less than half a million anyways.

I'm talking shops who spend $200-$500K on servers and storage, not north of $1M (which is where this Oxide gear lives). Something like a 1/4 scale Oxide rack, perhaps.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#170

Post by caskstrength »

Youden wrote: post #158
caskstrength wrote: post #143

They seem to be cagey about their networking. Nothing besides vague "100GbE to the switch". Is this some home-brew asic or fpga? What offloads does it support? Is the driver upstream?

No, there's just a lot more that can be said than they wanted to fit on this one page. Specs of the switch are available here: https://oxide.computer/product/specifications

I was asking about their NIC, not switch.
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