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The Cloud Computer

oxide.computer

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Re: The Cloud Computer

#361

Post by steveklabnik »

rob74 wrote: post #150
nickik wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally on the main page there is a picture of a big computer. And then it says: Oxide Cloud Computer No Cables. No Assembly. Just Cloud. Contact Sales How much easier can they make it? They clearly want to sell computers.

Yes, but... what is a "Cloud Computer"? Is it a "computer in the cloud", like e.g. an AWS EC2 instance? Or is it a fancy name for a good old fashioned server rack (on which you will probably want to run your own cloud, because everybody's doing that nowadays, hence the name), like in this case? And if it's a server rack, how come you don't need any cables? And what do you do with this "cloud computer"? Do they host i…

> Or is it a fancy name for a good old fashioned server rack

In a sense. Yes, it is a rack of servers. You're buying a computer. But we've designed the rack of servers as a full rack of servers, rather than an individual 1U. Comes with software to manage the rack like you would a cloud; you don't think of an oxide rack as individual compute sleds, you think of it as a pool of capacity.

> And if it's a server rack, how come you don't need any cables?

Because you are buying an entire rack. The sleds are blind mated. You plug in power, you plug in networking, you're good to go. You're not cabling up a bunch of individual servers when you're installing.

> Do they host it in their data center or deliver it to you?

Customers get them delivered to their data center.

Happy to answer any other questions.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#362

Post by throw-DO-178C »

steveklabnik wrote: post #337
throw-DO-178C wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... code is also EXTREMELY high quality. If you're an embedded developer go take a look at Hubris and Humility. So, Humility is like MC/DC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_condition/decision_co...

Humility is a debugger, not a code coverage tool.

HUMILITY

1. The state or quality of being humble; freedom from pride and arrogance; lowliness of mind; a modest estimate of one's own worth; a sense of one's own unworthiness through imperfection and sinfulness; self-abasement; humbleness.

-- Webster's 1918 Dictionary

Our avionics software was originally spec-ed to not NEED a debugger it was to be of such high quality, but the designer added break point op-codes in the VM anyway. I guess he was aware of the concept of humility, too. ;) Like humor, humility seems to be in short supply these days.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#365

Post by Nilithus »

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…

I guess there must be a largish market for this since AWS introduced Outpost to provide the "cloud" to onprem industries. I feel like this is competing with that market.

Since many of those use cases probably already run extensive on-prem infrastructure this could appeal to them. AWS outpost talks about industries like healthcare, telecom, media and entertainment, manufacturing, or highly regulated spaces like financial services. I've heard of media companies that process through things like IMAX cameras that have just tons of TB's of data sometimes just for 5 minutes worth of footage. That would simply be too cost prohibitive - in bandwidth alone - to try and move around in the cloud and you don't want to have to wait for things like AWS snowball or whatever.

While I think the space is "niche" those niche spaces are not small. Big companies with big budgets.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#366

Post by YorickPeterse »

paxys wrote: post #321
YorickPeterse wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only a problem if you insist on hiring people from such expensive areas. Given Oxide hires remotely, I doubt this is an actual problem for them.

No company wants to hire in expensive areas, but that's just where engineering talent is concentrated.

Ah yes, because good engineers can only be found in San Francisco and similarly expensive areas.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#368

Post by throwaway1777 »

DonnyV wrote: post #330
apexalpha wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn that's insane. As someone from Europe these salaries are just extreme. If ya'll are looking for a remote security engineer from Europe hit me up. :) For those numbers I'll walk the servers into the customers myself.

Salary is that high in the US because we have no social net or price caps here. Your on your own for everything. Healthcare, retirement, overpriced homes, out of control rent, etc

Also because you can be fired at any moment.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#369

Post by layer8 »

Nilithus wrote: post #347
layer8 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a limited market. You need to be large enough for a private cloud to make sense, but above a certain size it also should be a no-brainer to have a competent ops team making you less dependent on a singular infrastructure provider.

Perhaps this changes the calculus. If you don't need as much of an ops team to go private cloud. Then you might not need to be as large before it makes sense.

By a private cloud making sense, I mean the lower bound for being an Oxide customer, i.e. having the budget to buy the infrastructure with enough headroom for usage spikes and expected near-term growth. The reasons why you otherwise would go public cloud when you’re still small. The reduced need for an ops team with Oxide was already factored in.

Re: The Cloud Computer

#370

Post by steveklabnik »

albert_e wrote: post #43

Is the name of the company "Oxide" or "0xide" (with a leading zero)? All text seems to indicate the former while the logo seems to spell the latter?

The name is "Oxide Computer Company." But since "0x" is often used for hexidecimal numbers, and "0x1de" happens to be one, we play around with it from time to time.
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