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The Cloud Computer

oxide.computer

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Re: The Cloud Computer

#311

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

Oh. I get what this is. It's a "cloud" mainframe. They're trying to be the Apple of mainframes.

Reinvent OpenStack, slap it on some 8Us and storage arrays, shove it in a rack, and ship it to a colo with a professional installer. So basically one of the larger server vendors but with integrated "cloud" software, minus the 2-hour service turnaround and spare parts.

The fact that they're writing the software from scratch is going to add years of lead time until they reach parity with other solutions. My guess is they're hoping they can get sticker price or TCO low enough that it outweighs the lack of functionality and uncertainty of a brand new everything. If you just need some VMs in a lab in the office closet, might work.

They only have $44M to build that company? I hope the next funding round is better :/

Re: The Cloud Computer

#312

Post by steveklabnik »

dustingetz wrote: post #216
steve1977 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just hyperconverged infrastructure with a cute name?

way better explanation than the website copy "no cables no assembly just cloud" wtf is that

Obviously different marketing copy speaks to different people. But that is referring to how, when you buy a rack from us, you don't need to put everything together and cable it all up: you pull it out of the box, plug in networking and power, boot the thing up, and you're good to go. Installation time is hours, not days or weeks, which is the norm.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#313

Post by Voultapher »

bigironcto wrote: post #258
apendleton wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're mostly targeting customers who want an AWS- or GCP-like experience from a developer perspective (compute is abstracted and you can provision it with an API, etc.), but want to own their own compute infrastructure and have it on-prem. That market has mostly had to cobble together consumer-inspired HP/Cisco/whatever stuff historically (like, one of the early talks about the Oxide value proposition was c…

Thank you for the response. The problem you described has been solved by the large vendors with Hyper-converged offerings for many years so it sounds like Oxide might be a bit late to the party. I do understand well the rational of running your own servers vs hyperscalers, as well as the repatriation trend but I see Oxide at best as a niche player.

Genuine question, you mention Hyper-converged, can you point to anything that comes even close to the experience you presumably get from the Oxide offering.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#314

Post by steveklabnik »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #123
quickthrower2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they basically done for the data centre what iMac did for computers in about year 1999 (or whenever!)

> what iMac did for computers in about year 1999 Ehrm. What is that exactly? Are you alluding to cute design, different user interface? Or ditching then common PC component modularity? "Thinking differently"? One difference is that Oxide development was done in the open and they don't seem hell bent on creating a closed ecosystem. (Yet, at least)

I think Oxide shares one idea with Apple: hardware and software should be created for each other. In that sense, your parent is correct.

You are also correct that we diverge from Apple in other ways, such as our commitment to openness, rather than secrecy.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#315

Post by steveklabnik »

gigatexal wrote: post #287
fefe23 wrote: post #11

This is actually a pretty big deal. They sell servers, but as a finished product. Not as a cobbled together mess of third party stuff where the vendor keeps shrugging if there is an integration problem. They integrated it. It comes with all the features they expect you to want if you wanted to build your own cloud. Also, they wrote the software. And it's all open source. So no "sorry but the third party vendor droppe…

Anyone know specs or prices?

Specs are here: https://oxide.computer/product/specifications

Prices are here: https://oxide.computer/sales ;)

Re: The Cloud Computer

#316

Post by vidarh »

ninkendo wrote: post #275
vidarh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the case ~15+ years ago. Private cloud has been a term for the majority of that time to evoke the elasticity and virtualisation without the "not in your own data center" bit, because to most users of a cloud the operative bit is that they don't have to worry about where the computer is or talk to someone to provision one, not whether it sits in the corporate data centre or off at Amazon. Hybrid clouds even m…

> "You" as in "the organisation as a whole" don't get elasticity. "You" as in "your department" or "you as an individual" do get elasticity. Right, but to the degree that you get elasticity, it starts to look more and more like "someone else's computer", no? If multiple people/departments/etc are provisioning virtual instances on one shared cloud infra, with nobody who's using the provisioning API caring about the un…

Yes, that is why we talk about it as a private cloud -- it looks almost exactly like a public cloud to the people actually using it.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#317

Post by Voultapher »

bigironcto wrote: post #261
chx wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are not. This offering definitely sounds like something for on prem and not a large data center. Basically, if your core competence is hosting stuff you don't need the extra value they provide. But if your core competence is basically anything else and just need more than a single server under the IT guys' desk then this begins to look very exciting.

You might be right but if a customer won't have the size/scale, it won't value the unique proposition from Oxide. I hope I am wrong because it would be great to see a new player with a fresh perspective in the hardware market.

Bryan Cantril claims the cost of running these could be worth it for many small companies, and if you compare it to EC2 costs for running let's say a CI I find that easy to believe. Maybe it won't be cheaper than Hetzner and co. but that's not what they are competing against on a product level.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#318

Post by dboreham »

bigironcto wrote: post #258
apendleton wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're mostly targeting customers who want an AWS- or GCP-like experience from a developer perspective (compute is abstracted and you can provision it with an API, etc.), but want to own their own compute infrastructure and have it on-prem. That market has mostly had to cobble together consumer-inspired HP/Cisco/whatever stuff historically (like, one of the early talks about the Oxide value proposition was c…

Thank you for the response. The problem you described has been solved by the large vendors with Hyper-converged offerings for many years so it sounds like Oxide might be a bit late to the party. I do understand well the rational of running your own servers vs hyperscalers, as well as the repatriation trend but I see Oxide at best as a niche player.

This might boil down to "why does anyone need Stripe when there's Visa"?

Re: The Cloud Computer

#319

Post by candiddevmike »

qaq wrote: post #301
bigironcto wrote: post #241

I am CTO of a large global data center provider posting with throwaway account. As a technologist, I really appreciate what they have done. Impressive work, high quality, however I don't understand who this is for. The meaningful market for Data Center hardware is pretty well defined in two clusters. People that build/make custom gear (such as Hyperscalers) and people that buys HP/Cisco/IBM/Dell... (blades or hyper-c…

They literally had CTOs of F100 companies that want to buy this gear as part of VCs pitch. Because as you can imagine your question was the first question VC's asked.

Purchasing a ton of hardware from a startup seems extremely risky for a F100. It's one thing to be left holding the bag when a SaaS startup goes under, but when you just spent millions on gear that is now completely unsupported... eek.

I'd be curious to see what companies are interested, Oxide doesn't have any logos on their website which is a little odd given the space.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#320

Post by paxys »

rwmj wrote: post #290
paxys wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their pricing starts at $500K (but realistically will be $1-2M per order at a minimum). This is not intended for people who browse their website, click "buy" and fill in their credit card info. If you don't want to talk to a sales rep you were never their target customer, and I'm sure they aren't sweating the hypothetical lost sale.

I still don't get why they can't put a price on the website.

Why would they? What advantage do they get from it?
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